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Movies like Vanya on 42nd Street

Key Features:
Musical drama, Theater, Actor, Character study, Existentialism, Human condition, Drama, Adaptation
Tone:
restrained, serious, dramatic
Target Audience:
Theater aficionados, Literary enthusiasts, Intellectual viewers
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Melancholy

Vanya on 42nd Street

1994-10-19
Vanya on 42nd Street Poster - Find Similar Movies

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Larry Pine, Brooke Smith, George Gaynes, Lynn Cohen, Phoebe Brand, Jerry Mayer, Andre Gregory, Madhur Jaffrey
Crew
Louis Malle, Andre Gregory, David Mamet
Rating
6.523(87 votes)
Vanya on 42nd StreetVanya on 42nd Street
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Fiddler on the Roof
7.74

In a pre-revolutionary Russia, a poor Jewish milkman struggles with the challenges of a changing world as his daughters fall in love and antisemitism grows.



Cold Souls
5.974

Paul is agonising over his interpretation of 'Uncle Vanya' and, paralysed by anxiety, stumbles upon a solution via a New Yorker article about a high-tech company promising to alleviate suffering by extracting souls. He enlists their services—only to discover that his soul is the shape and size of a chickpea.



Drive My Car
7.4

Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to drive his car. In between rides, secrets from the past and heartfelt confessions will be unveiled.



A Streetcar Named Desire

A disturbed, aging Southern belle moves in with her sister for solace — but being face-to-face with her brutish brother-in-law accelerates her downward spiral.



Black Swan
7.7

The story of a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life is completely consumed with dance. Nina lives with her retired ballerina mother who zealously supports her daughter's professional ambition. When the artistic director decides to replace the prima ballerina for the opening production of their new season, Nina is his first choice.



Onegin
Onegin(1999)
6.1

A virtuous and passionate girl falls in love with a cynical but a dashing aristocrat.



Rent
Rent(2019)
6.7

The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.



After the Rehearsal
6.766

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Strindberg's A Dream Play. She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler's star and lover.



Ogres
Ogres(2016)
6.5

There's drama aplenty for the travelling theatre company Chekhov Cabaret. The actors share the good times and the bad as a nomadic tribe where work and private life always mingle. They don’t mince words, these obstreperous actors with a sardonic sense of humour. Theatre always comes first.



Synecdoche, New York
7.545

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.



Opening Night
7.6

Actress Myrtle Gordon is a functioning alcoholic who is a few days from the opening night of her latest play, concerning a woman distraught about aging. One night a car kills one of Myrtle's fans who is chasing her limousine in an attempt to get the star's attention. Myrtle internalizes the accident and goes on a spiritual quest, but fails to finds the answers she is after. As opening night inches closer and closer, fragile Myrtle must find a way to make the show go on.



My Dinner with Andre
7.488

Two old friends meet for dinner; as one tells anecdotes detailing his experiences, the other notices their differing worldviews.



Hurlyburly
5.476

A group of actors and their casting agents try to find a direction in their lives whilst coming to terms with their personal problems and relationship conflicts.



Imitation of Life
7.5

In 1940s New York, a white widow who dreams of being on Broadway has a chance encounter with a black single mother, who becomes her maid.



Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway

Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.



Waiting for Guffman
6.979

Aspiring director Corky St. Clair and the marginally talented amateur cast of his hokey small-town musical production go overboard when they learn that Broadway theater agent Mort Guffman will be in attendance.



Playing the Victim
6.4

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.



The Dresser
6.724

In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser, is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.



The Dresser
6.19

One fateful night in a small English regional theatre during World War II a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeares King Lear. Bombs are falling, sirens are wailing, the curtain is up in an hour but the actor/manager Sir who is playing Lear is nowhere to be seen. His dresser Norman must scramble to keep the production alive but will Sir turn up in time and if he does will he be able to perform that night? The Dresser is a wickedly funny and deeply moving story of friendship and loyalty as Sir reflects on his lifelong accomplishments and seeks to reconcile his turbulent friendships with those in his employ before the final curtain.



Man on the Train
6.7

A man, Milan steps off a train, into a small French village. As he waits for the day when he will rob the town bank, he runs into an old retired poetry teacher named M. Manesquier. The two men strike up a strange friendship and explore the road not taken, each wanting to live the other's life.



The Master and Margarita

A writer in 1930s Moscow has his work banned and is expelled from the official union, leaving him without income. He then writes a novel about a mysterious dark visitor and gradually starts confusing his real life with the story.



Stage Fright
6.5

While a group of young actors rehearse a new musical about a mass murderer, a notorious psychopath escapes from a nearby insane asylum.



The Rite
The Rite(1969)
6.833

Called to court on obscenity charges, a theatre troupe are forced to expose their neuroses and inner psychological torments.



Yannick
Yannick(2023)
7.073

In the middle of a performance of the play "Le Cocu", a bad boulevard comedy at a Parisian theatre, Yannick gets up and interrupts the show to take the evening back in hand.



Madeline's Madeline
5.857

Madeline has become an integral part of a prestigious physical theater troupe. When the workshop's ambitious director pushes the teenager to weave her rich interior world and troubled history with her mother into their collective art, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. The resulting battle between imagination and appropriation rips out of the rehearsal space and through all three women's lives.



Camp
Camp(2003)
5.477

Misfits in their lives back home, a group of young people live it up at musical-theater camp. While the sports counselor is completely ignored, the kids' spend all their time in rehearsal for a grueling schedule that involves a new show every two weeks. Several personal stories come to the fore.



War and Peace
6.7

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.



Metropolitan
6.9

A radical student is adopted by a group of young New Yorkers, serves as a catalyst to alter his and their lives. Gathering in a Manhattan apartment, the group of friends meet to discuss social mobility, Fourier's socialism and play bridge in their cocoon of upper-class society - until they are joined by a man with a critical view of their way of life.



The Man Who Sleeps
7.767

A young student decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around him.



Detachment
7.617

A chronicle of three weeks in the lives of several high school teachers, administrators and students through the eyes of substitute teacher, Henry Barthes. Henry roams from school to school, imparting modes of knowledge, but never staying long enough to form any semblance of sentient attachment.



Miss Stevens
6.496

Stuck at a crossroads in her personal life, it falls on high school English teacher Miss Stevens to chaperone three of her students — Billy, Margot and Sam — on a weekend trip to a drama competition.



Noises Off...
7.2

Hired to helm an Americanized take on a British play, director Lloyd Fellowes does his best to control an eccentric group of stage actors. With a star actress quickly passing her prime, a male lead with no confidence, and a bit actor that's rarely sober, chaos ensues in the lead up to a Broadway premiere.



The Pawnbroker
7.1

A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.



Stanley & Iris
6.494

An illiterate cook at a company cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman. As they get to know one another, she discovers his inability to read. When he is fired, she takes on trying to teach him to read in her kitchen each night.



Stage Fright
6.799

A struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence when he's accused of murdering the husband of a high-society entertainer.



Mikey and Nicky
6.8

Nick is desperate, holed up in a cheap hotel, suffering from an ulcer and convinced that a local mob boss wants him killed. Desperate and terrified, he calls Mikey, his friend since childhood and a fellow gangster. So begins a long night…



The Company
5.2

Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.



An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano

On a summer day in late 19th century Russia, a group of bourgeois friends and acquaintances gather at a dilapidated country estate.



Rendez-vous
5.574

Nina is a young, carefree actress who arrives in Paris searching for her big break. There, she finds drama both on- and offstage as she becomes involved with three men: a mild-mannered real-estate agent who offers her stability, a bad-boy actor who lives dangerously on the edge, and an intense theater director who casts her in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” As opening night approaches, the emotional extremes of Nina’s love life fuel her art.



Out 1
Out 1(1990)
7.2

While two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus, two solitary individuals wander the Parisian streets hustling the populace for cash.



Hamlet
Hamlet(1996)
7.3

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother now marrying the murderer... his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.



The Trial
The Trial(1962)
7.4

The surreal tale of an unassuming man who is accused of a never-specified crime and shambles through bizarre encounters to escape this nightmare.



Beanpole
Beanpole(2019)
7.018

1945, Leningrad. World War II has devastated the city, demolishing its buildings and leaving its citizens in tatters, physically and mentally. Two young women, Iya and Masha, search for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins.



Don't Think Twice
6.4

An improv group deals with several crises, including the loss of their lease and one member hitting the big time.



The Humbling
5.1

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.



My American Uncle

Prof. Henri Laborit uses the stories of the lives of three people to discuss behaviorist theories of survival, combat, rewards and punishment, and anxiety. René is a technical manager at a textile factory and must face the anxiety caused by corporate downsizing. Janine is a self-educated actress/stylist who learns that the wife of her lover is dying and must decide to let them reunite. Jean is a controversial career-climbing writer/politician at a crossroads in life.



War and Peace
7.5

A seven-hour epic adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy. The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.



The Merchant of Four Seasons

Hans is a street fruit peddler and born loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However, the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.



Collateral Beauty
7.219

Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.



Time Regained
6.2

In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life.



Mirror
Mirror(1975)
7.943

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.



Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

This is a life story of three girlfriends from youth to autumn ages. Their dreams and wishes, love, disillusions...



Black Widow
6.304

When a young stage hopeful is found dead, suspicion falls on her mentor, a successful Broadway producer.



Venus in Fur
7.2

An enigmatic actress may have a hidden agenda when she auditions for a part in a misogynistic writer's play.



Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Two minor characters from the play "Hamlet" stumble around unaware of their scripted lives and unable to deviate from them.



Guys and Dolls
6.534

Gambler Nathan Detroit has few options for the location of his big craps game. Needing $1,000 to pay a garage owner to host the game, Nathan bets Sky Masterson that Sky cannot get virtuous Sarah Brown out on a date. Despite some resistance, Sky negotiates a date with her in exchange for bringing people into her mission. Meanwhile, Nathan's longtime fiancée, Adelaide, wants him to go legit and marry her.



12
12(2007)
6.591

A loose remake of “12 Angry Men”, “12” is set in contemporary Moscow where 12 very different men must unanimously decide the fate of a young Chechen accused of murdering his step-father, a Russian army officer. Consigned to a makeshift jury room in a school gymnasium, one by one each man takes center stage to confront, connect, and confess while the accused awaits a verdict and revisits his heartbreaking journey through war in flashbacks.



Hamlet
Hamlet(1990)
6.603

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.



Manchester by the Sea

After his older brother passes away, Lee Chandler is forced to return home to care for his 16-year-old nephew. There he is compelled to deal with a tragic past that separated him from his family and the community where he was born and raised.



Second Act
6.3

Value Shop assistant manager Maya Vargas wants only one thing for her 43rd birthday -- a promotion. While her résumé may not scream upper management, her track record certainly does; she is an innovator who listens to her customers and delivers results. When she loses the job to a college-educated candidate, Maya sets out to prove to Madison Avenue that street smarts are as valuable as book smarts -- and it's never too late for a second act.



A Chorus Line
6.2

A group of dancers congregate on the stage of a Broadway theatre to audition for a new musical production directed by Zach. After the initial eliminations, seventeen hopefuls remain, among them Cassie, who once had a tempestuous romantic relationship with Zach. She is desperate enough for work to humble herself and audition for him; whether he's willing to let professionalism overcome his personal feelings about their past remains to be seen.



Forever Young
6.43

At the end of the 1980s, Stella, Victor, Adèle and Etienne are 20 years old. They take the entrance exam to the famous acting school created by Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Romans at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre. Launched at full speed into life, passion, and love, together they will experience the turning point of their lives, but also their first tragedy.



The Entertainer
6.2

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



Intersection
5.067

During a car accident, Vincent Eastman watches his whole life flash before his eyes, and he doesn't like what he sees. While maintaining the semblance of a marriage with his wife, Sally, Vincent has been carrying on with a mistress, Olivia. She's everything Sally isn't -- warm, passionate, carefree. So why can't he choose between the two, especially when his indecision is taking its toll on his daughter?



Uncle Frank
7.316

In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.



12 Angry Men
8.549

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.



Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others

Three friends navigate mid-life crises: a blocked writer, a disillusioned doctor, and a charming man facing bankruptcy and divorce. As their struggles strain friendships, a younger man captures the attention of one friend's wife, complicating their lives further.



A Different Man
6.9

Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.



Cinderella
7

Cinderella has faith her dreams of a better life will come true. With help from her loyal mice friends and a wave of her Fairy Godmother's wand, Cinderella's rags are magically turned into a glorious gown and off she goes to the Royal Ball. But when the clock strikes midnight, the spell is broken, leaving a single glass slipper... the only key to the ultimate fairy-tale ending!



Curtains
Curtains(1983)
5.3

Six young actresses auditioning for a movie role at a remote mansion are targeted by a mysterious masked murderer.



The Country Girl
6.901

An actor on the skids is given one more chance to regain his stardom, as well as his self-respect, yet his alcoholism may prevent that from happening.



Persona
Persona(1966)
8.1

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.



Playing for Time
6.839

When a Jewish songstress is plucked from the stage and sent to Auschwitz, she and other musicians find themselves assigned to a terrible task—using their talents to soothe fellow prisoners who are sentenced to die in the gas chambers.



Rear Window
8.3

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.



Blue Jasmine
6.981

After experiencing a traumatic misfortune, Jasmine French, a wealthy woman from New York, moves to San Francisco to live with her foster sister Ginger and the firm purpose of getting a new life, but she will be haunted by anxiety and memories of the past.



Paris
Paris(2008)
6.5

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment.



The Forty-Year-Old Version

Desperate for a breakthrough as she nears the big 4-0, struggling New York City playwright Radha finds inspiration by reinventing herself as a rapper.



The Internship
6.241

Two recently laid-off men in their 40s try to make it as interns at a successful Internet company where their managers are in their 20s.



Life During Wartime

Friends, family, and lovers struggle to find love, forgiveness, and meaning in an almost war-torn world riddled with comedy and pathos.



Revolutionary Road

A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.



Annie
Annie(1999)
6.437

Things seem pretty bad for a young girl living a "hard-knock life" in an orphanage. Fed up with the dastardly Miss Hannigan, Annie escapes the run-down orphanage determined to find her mom and dad. It's an adventure that takes her from the cold, mean streets of New York to the warm, comforting arms of bighearted billionaire Oliver Warbucks - with plenty of mischief and music in between.



Chinese Coffee
6.659

When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.



Orchestra Rehearsal

An orchestra assembles for a rehearsal in an ancient chapel under the inquisitive eyes of a TV documentary crew, but an uprising breaks out.



American Beauty
8.003

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.



West Side Story
7.235

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.



Bee Season
5.01

Wife and mother Miriam begins a downward emotional spiral as her husband avoids their collapsing marriage by immersing himself in his 11-year-old daughter's quest to become a spelling-bee champion.



Biloxi Blues
6.237

A Jewish teenager sets three goals: lose his virginity, become a writer, and survive World War II.



Hour of the Star
7.3

Macabéa has just moved to the big city after her aunt, who raised her, died. She gets a job as a typist and moves into a boarding house with three other women. In her spare time, she listens to a radio station called Time; on Sundays, she likes to ride the metro. Then she meets Olímpico, a northeasterner like herself, who has dreams of becoming a congressman.



Manhattan
Manhattan(1979)
7.7

Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.



A Nutcracker Christmas

When her niece is cast in The Philadelphia Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, a jaded ex-ballerina is forced to come to terms with the life and love she left behind.



Melinda and Melinda
6.178

While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.



Stoker
Stoker(2013)
6.638

After India's father dies in an auto accident, her uncle Charlie, whom she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her emotionally unstable mother Evelyn. Soon after his arrival, she comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives, but instead of feeling outrage or horror, this friendless girl becomes increasingly infatuated with him.



White Noise
5.6

Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own mortality.



Glengarry Glen Ross

Times are tough at Premiere Properties. Shelley "the machine" Levene and Dave Moss are veteran salesmen, but only Ricky Roma is on a hot streak. The new Glengarry sales leads could turn everything around, but the front office is holding them back until these "losers" prove themselves. Then someone decides to take matters into his own hands, stealing the Glengarry leads and leaving everyone wondering who did it.



Finding Forrester
7.116

Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.



The Muppets
6.687

When Kermit the Frog and the Muppets learn that their beloved theater is slated for demolition, a sympathetic human, Gary, and his puppet brother, Walter, swoop in to help the gang put on a show and raise the $10 million they need to save the day.



Demolition
6.8

An emotionally desperate investment banker finds hope through a woman he meets.



A Simple Story
5.9

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.



Les Misérables
7.215

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

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