The Full MontyMovies like The Full Monty
- Key Features:
- Unemployment, Male bonding, Underdog, Economic hardship, Desperation, Friendship, Self-esteem, Working class, Stripping, Body image, Comedy-drama, Redemption, England
- Tone:
- humorous, earnest, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Comedy fans, British cinema enthusiasts, Character-driven stories, Feel-good movies
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Despair → Hope → Triumph']
The Full Monty

Sheffield, England. Gaz, a jobless steelworker in need of quick cash persuades his mates to bare it all in a one-night-only strip show.
The Full Monty
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. The working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with their "signing on" for unemployment benefits. Some coworkers help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, who's struggling to be a professional singer.

A Yorkshire coal mine is threatened with closure and the only hope is for the men to enter their Grimley Colliery Brass Band into a national competition. They believe they have no hope until Gloria appears carrying her Flugelhorn. At first mocked for being a woman, she soon becomes the only chance for the band to win.

The annual British Hairdressing Championship comes to Keighley, a town where Phil and son Brian run a barbershop and Phil's ex-wife Shelly and her lover Sandra run a beauty salon.

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.

Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce.

Naive Stanley Windrush looks for a career in a family business. Much to his dismay, he finds work at a munitions factory where he has to start from the bottom, while both the management and the labor union use him as a tool in their fight for power.

Tommy Fawkes wants to be a successful comedian. After his Las Vegas debut is a failure, he returns to Blackpool where his father—also a comedian—started, and where he spent the summers of his childhood.

A pool boy and a gardener turn an empty mansion into a home for women who belong to the world's oldest profession.

In South Yorkshire, a small group of railway maintenance men discover that because of privatization, their lives will never be the same. When the trusty British Rail sign is replaced by one reading East Midland Infrastructure, it is clear that there will be the inevitable winners and losers as downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords.

Bruno is a former paper mill worker who has been unemployed for three years. Concluding that there is too much competition in his line of work, he decides to eliminate his competition permanently.

At the Mêle sur Sarthe, a small Norman village, farmers are affected by a crisis. Georges Balbuzard, the mayor of the city, is not one to let them down and decides to try everything to save his village...

Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.

Members of a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute cause controversy when they pose nude for a charity calendar.

A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.

In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.

Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.

County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

The Football Factory is more than just a study of the English obsession with football violence, it's about men looking for armies to join, wars to fight and places to belong. A forgotten culture of Anglo Saxon males fed up with being told they're not good enough and using their fists as a drug they describe as being more potent than sex and drugs put together.

When two cash-strapped UK-based Indians become male escorts amid an economic downturn, money flows right in but everything else in their lives starts falling apart.

The true story of how Dave Fishwick, a working class man and self-made millionaire, fought to set up a community bank so that he could help the local businesses of Burnley not only survive, but thrive. In his bid to help his beloved community, he has to take on the elitist financial institutions of London and fight to receive the first, new banking license to be issued in over 100 years.

In 1984, a group of LGBT activists decide to raise money to support the National Union of Mineworkers during their lengthy strike. There is only one problem: the Union seems embarrassed to receive their support.

Terry is a small-time car dealer trying to leave his shady past behind and start a family. Martine is a beautiful model from Terry's old neighbourhood who knows that Terry is no angel. When Martine proposes a foolproof plan to rob a bank, Terry recognises the danger but realises this may be the opportunity of a lifetime.

The best women of British acting go to an audition for a dream role, primed to take on the role of a lifetime: that complex woman, the strong woman, a woman for today.

Bounced from her job, Erin Grant needs money if she's to have any chance of winning back custody of her child. But, eventually, she must confront the naked truth: to take on the system, she'll have to take it all off. Erin strips to conquer, but she faces unintended circumstances when a hound dog of a Congressman zeroes in on her and sharpens the shady tools at his fingertips, including blackmail and murder.

A card shark and his unwillingly-enlisted friends need to make a lot of cash quick after losing a sketchy poker match. To do this they decide to pull a heist on a small-time gang who happen to be operating out of the flat next door.

Two hopeful lads from Leatherhead trying to break into the movies stumble upon the opportunity of a lifetime. Frustrated by their arty film teacher, wannabe producer Joe and his talented but neurotic director friend Baggy head to London to sell what they know is a script made of gold.

An underworld drama set in the early 1980s, about a lonely factory worker whose life is transformed when he becomes a nightclub doorman.

Documentary style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England; and the eventual long run effects of nuclear war on civilization.

The boys get arrested for robbing an ATM machine and spend 18 months in jail, upon release they decide to pull off "The Big Dirty", a plan to steal a large amount of coins because they are untraceable and quit their life of crime forever.

Four policemen go undercover and infiltrate a gang of football hooligans hoping to route out their leaders. For one of the four, the line between 'job' and 'yob' becomes more unclear as time passes . . .

Involuntarily-retired Colonel Hyde recruits seven other dissatisfied ex-servicemen for a special project. Each of the men has a skeleton in the cupboard, is short of money, and is a service-trained expert in his field. The job is a bank robbery, and military discipline and planning are imposed by Hyde and second-in-command Race on the team, although civilian irritations do start getting in the way.

After the closure of their shipyard in Northern Spain, a few former workers: Santa, José, Lino, Amador, Sergei and Reina keep in touch. They meet mainly at a bar owned by their former colleague Rico. Santa is the most superficially confident and unofficial leader of the group. A court case hangs over him relating to a shipyard lamp he smashed during a protest against the closure. José is bitter that his wife, Ana, is employed when he is not.

In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.

Kenneth (who likes to call himself Kay) begins to realise he's just another wannabe bad boy... even less than a loser in fact. After quitting his job at Laimsbury's, Kay vows to become a respected gangster... or cry trying. A pulls-no-punches, coming-of-age story, centering on one directionless hopeless "shotter", who finds his true worth in the face of urban adversity.

A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.

In a region that was once the flagship of the mining industry, two long-term unemployed men come up with the idea of building an "artisanal" amusement park on the site of a disused coal mine. By saving the mine and its memory, they will regain their strength and dignity.

High school graduation just wouldn’t be complete without an un-chaperoned, uninhibited and unforgettable final holiday. At least that’s what Will, Jay, Simon and Neil think when they book a two-week stay on an exotic Greek island. As their dreams of sun-drenched days and booze-filled nights are left hopelessly unfulfilled, the lads fight their way into the party scene with hilariously humiliating results.

A frustrated, unemployed teacher joins forces with a scammer and his girlfriend in a blackmailing scheme.

A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

A 22-year-old factory worker lets loose on the weekends: drinking, brawling, and dating two women, one of whom is older and married.

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

Ray is an aging ex-socialist who has become a bankrobber after seeing the demise of socialism in 1980s Britain. Teaming up with a gang of other has-beenish crims, he commits one bank job too many. The gang dissolves in a murderous flurry of recriminations.

Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends --Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind as Begbie and Sick Boy come knocking.

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.

A man wanders into a seemingly deserted town with his young son in search of work. But after a bit of bad luck, he joins the town's population of lost souls.

In the summer of 1947, Britain prepares to commemorate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. To get around food-rationing laws, Dr. Charles Swaby, accountant Henry Allardyce and solicitor Frank Lockwood are fattening a black-market pig for the big day. Egged on by his wife, meek Gilbert Chilvers steals the swine, but the couple must conceal it from inspector Morris Wormold.

A loan shark gives ex-con Nick a period of 24 hours in order to pay back the money he owes. Up against it, Nick involves his best mate on a multi-part mission in order to raise the cash before it's too late for them both

Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.

Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self-employed delivery driver. It's hard work, and his wife's job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.

A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.

When Sam learns his mother cannot afford to send him to another school after he is kicked out, he and his friends start their own escort service for mature women to pay for his tuition.

In the depression, Chaney, a strong silent streetfighter, joins with Speed, a promoter of no-holds-barred street boxing bouts. They go to New Orleans where Speed borrows money to set up fights for Chaney, but Speed gambles away any winnings.

Will Plunkett and Captain James Macleane, two men from different ends of the social spectrum in 18th-century England, enter a gentlemen's agreement: They decide to rid the aristocrats of their belongings. With Plunkett's criminal know-how and Macleane's social connections, they team up to be soon known as "The Gentlemen Highwaymen". But when one day these gentlemen hold up Lord Chief Justice Gibson's coach, Macleane instantly falls in love with his beautiful and cunning niece, Lady Rebecca Gibson. Unfortunately, Thief Taker General Chance, who also is quite fond of Rebecca, is getting closer and closer to getting both.

Charlie's got a 'job' to do. Having just left prison he finds one of his friends has attempted a high-risk job in Torino, Italy, right under the nose of the mafia. Charlie's friend doesn't get very far, so Charlie takes over the 'job'. Using three Mini Coopers, a couple of Jaguars, and a bus, he hopes to bring Torino to a standstill, steal a fortune in gold and escape in the chaos.

A deranged prison warden with a nasty habit of killing escapees forces the boyfriends of his teenage twin daughters into a shotgun wedding, after they claim to be pregnant. All hope seems lost, until the husbands hatch a madcap plan to rob a money train to freedom.

Maurice Flitcroft, a dreamer and unrelenting optimist, managed to gain entry to The British Open Golf Championship qualifying in 1976 and subsequently shot the worst round in Open history, becoming a folk hero in the process.

Salvo and Valentino are two happy Sicilian friends, who do not want to work, because they know that if they find a permanent job, their girlfriends will ask them to marry them.

A nebbish schoolteacher begs his smooth (and misogynistic) pal to teach him 'the knack' – how to score with women. Serendipitously, the men meet up with a new girl in town, as well as a friendly lunatic who can’t help but paint things white.

In a misguided attempt to protect his family and pay back gambling debts to the local Mobster, Jimbo robs a fish market, which is coincidentally owned by the same Mobster. On the run, Jimbo is cornered in a local curio shop, where he takes hostage an assortment of colourful characters, including a man who may be his illegitimate father. Surrounded by the Police, the SAS and the Mobster's crew, the young man must find a way out of his precarious predicament with the help of his oddball captives.

Fast Eddie Felson is a small-time pool hustler with a lot of talent but a self-destructive attitude. His bravado causes him to challenge the legendary Minnesota Fats to a high-stakes match.

After a love affair ends badly, a young Parisian named Paul sinks into the same kind of deep depression that led his sister to kill herself. He moves back home with his father and aimless brother Jonathan but refuses to get out of bed.

A day in the life of a group of men and women in Hollywood, in the hours leading up to a friend's birthday party.

Rita and Sue are two teenagers living on a run-down council estate in Bradford, who both share a job babysitting for Bob and Michelle's children. Whilst giving them a lift home one night, Bob decides to take Rita and Sue up to a deserted, country-side landscape. Clearly knowing what he has in mind, Rita and Sue are only too happy to oblige and both have a sexual encounter with him that becomes a regular occurrence.

Two brothers live in the economically-depressed Rust Belt, when a cruel twist of fate lands one in prison. His brother is then lured into one of the most violent crime rings in the Northeast.

Maggie, a quiet retiring grandmother, finds herself helpless as her grandson’s health deteriorates. When one last chance appears, but money is desperately short, Maggie acts to raise the cash in a fashion that surprises everyone but her.

Stéphane, Cathy and Thierry are the best employees of the Employment Agency of their city. But their results are so good that the agency will have to close because of a lack of unemployed. The three colleagues then have the crazy idea of creating unemployment to save their job.

During the Blitz of World War II, a female screenwriter works on a film celebrating England's resilience as a way to buoy a weary populace's spirits. Her efforts to dramatise the true story of two sisters who undertook their own maritime mission to rescue wounded soldiers are met with mixed feelings by a dismissive all-male staff.

When Moore Street market-trader Agnes Brown finds her livelihood under threat from a ruthless developer, she and her family embark on a campaign to save her stall, aided as only the Browns will be by a motley troop of blind trainee Ninjas, an alcoholic solicitor, and a barrister with Tourettes Syndrome.

In this radical and endearing black comedy, a group of retrenched female factory workers decide to pool their compensation money… and hire a hit man to liquidate their boss.

After England's football (soccer) manager has a heart attack, Mike Bassett is hired as the new manager and promptly announces the team will win the World Cup.

Britain’s Peter Colt has never quite lived up to his dreams of tennis stardom. Once ranked as high as number 11 in the world, the journeyman veteran has watched his number slip to 119 as his confidence on the court slowly ebbs away. Now, on the eve of his leaving the world of professional tennis, he’s granted a wild card, allowing him to play his final Wimbledon tournament…make that his final tournament ever.

A light hearted comedy about the beginnings of Professional American Football. When a decorated war hero and college all star is tempted into playing professional football. Everyone see the chance to make some big money, but when a reporter digs up some dirt on the war hero... everyone could lose out.

In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life the way it is. When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang are forced to make choices that will change their lives for ever.

An impoverished American sailor is fortunate enough to be passing the house of two rich gentlemen who have conceived the crazy idea of distributing a note worth one million pounds. The sailor finds that whenever he tries to use the note to buy something, people treat him like a king and let him have whatever he likes for free. Ultimately, the money proves to be more troublesome than it is worth when it almost costs him his dignity and the woman he loves.

Angie is a working class woman. After being fired, she decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend, Rose. Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie builds a successful business extremely quickly.

The story follows Jamie, a troubled young man with a birthmark on his face, which has left him feeling isolated and fearful, hiding from the world outside. He lives in the East End of London, an area notorious for its violent hooded gangs. According to news reports, the gangs are now wearing demon masks. But, one night, Jamie discovers the terrifying truth.

A factory worker known for his tough attitude and for fighting for workers' rights starts losing credibility when friends and co-workers see him helping a young gay man.

A lowly pencil pusher working for MI7, Johnny English is suddenly promoted to super spy after Agent One is assassinated and every other agent is blown up at his funeral. When a billionaire entrepreneur sponsors the exhibition of the Crown Jewels—and the valuable gems disappear on the opening night and on English's watch—the newly-designated agent must jump into action to find the thief and recover the missing gems.

Four waiters and a cook working at a seaside restaurant hate one another but still keep working together for lack of better opportunities.

Unemployed cartoonist Gord Brody moves back in with his parents Jim and Julie and younger brother Freddy. When his parents demand he leave, he retaliates by spreading rumors that Jim is sexually abusing Freddy.

Bobby Walker lives the proverbial American dream: great job, beautiful family, shiny Porsche in the garage. When corporate downsizing leaves him and two co-workers jobless, the three men are forced to re-define their lives as men, husbands and fathers.

When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation.

The "Bulldozer", a former football star, is now working as a fisherman. As a group of street-people arranges a football match against the local Armybase, he is asked to be their trainer. His boat was damaged by a submarine and he currently has no work, so he agrees.

We follow the two Texas doctors who invented the modern breast implant and its surgical procedure. However, when success and money come their way, they split up and follow different paths. One becomes the surgeon of the everyday woman while the other's career freefalls and has to settle with strippers and actresses. The film covers their history and their inventions, from the sixties until today.

A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends, even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.

It is 1957. J.C. Cullen is a young man from a small town, with a talent for winning at craps, who leaves for the big city to work as a professional gambler. While there, he breaks the bank at a private craps game at the Gem Club, owned by George Cole, and falls in love with two women, one of them Cole's wife.

William has failed to kill himself so many times that he outsources his suicide to aging assassin Leslie. But with the contract signed and death assured within a week (or his money back), William suddenly discovers reasons to live... However Leslie is under pressure from his boss to make sure the contract is completed.

A look at the sexual and professional lives of three people — a television director, his ex-girlfriend, and a sex worker.

A libidinous construction worker uses his charm and bravado in an attempt to attain enough finances to build his dream project.

Fresh off an almost career-ending accident, stuntman Colt Seavers has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job.

Three friends who have been fired from the company where they worked and are demoralized because of their unemployment status. In these circumstances, they meet to undertake the plan that mentions the title but there is a problem: the car with which they would travel has broken down and the crane must wait.

To save her parents' small-town nightclub, a Broadway dancer stages an all-male, Christmas-themed revue — and meets a guy with all the right moves.

Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly grasping uncle.

A group of holidaymakers head for the Spanish resort of Elsbels for a 4-day visit. When they get there, they find the Hotel still hasn't been finished being built, and the weather is awful. And there is something strange about the staff—they all look very similar. To top it all off, the weather seems to be having an adverse affect on the Hotel's foundations.

Andrew Crocker-Harris is an embittered and disliked teacher of Greek and Latin at a British prep school. After nearly 20 years of service, he is being forced to retire for 'health reasons', and perhaps may not even be given a pension. The boys regard him as a Hitler, with some justification. His unfaithful wife Laura tries to hurt him in any way she can. Andrew must come to terms with his failed life and at least regain his own self-esteem.

Dek, a decent but somewhat dull man, enjoys a happy existence with beloved girlfriend Shirley. They live together with her 12-year-old, Marlene: her daughter by the delinquent Jimmy, who flew the coop years ago and hasn't been heard from since. Dek loves Shirley so much that he proposes to her on national television.

A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.

It's 1975, and Martin is a teenager looking to break out of a stifling home environment ruled by his alcoholic father and long-suffering mother. When Martin's pal Micke suggests they get jobs together as waiters at a resort off the Swedish coast, Martin is all for it, but before long Micke finds better things to do and Martin is left on his own. The presence of pretty fellow server Jenny is a major consolation, but to his surprise, guileless Martin is soon chosen as the protégé of Gösta, the resort's short-tempered manager. Gösta clearly likes Martin and makes him his right hand man, which gives Martin a crash course in the seedy side of life when he discovers Gösta has a number of other business interests, not all of which are legal or ethical.

