#16. African Cats (2011)

Storyline: An epic true story set against the backdrop of one of the wildest places on Earth, African Cats captures the real-life love, humor, and determination of the majestic kings of the savanna. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother's strength, spirit, and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a rival lion and his sons.

Plot Keywords: lion, lion cub, mother, hyena, engaging, endearing, africa ...

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#17. Chandni Bar (2001)

Storyline: Mumtaz is a village girl whose family is killed in communal riots. She moves to Mumbai with her uncle, the only family member she has left. They are desperately poor and her uncle persuades her to become a bar girl at Chandni Bar. This is merely temporary, he promises, until he gets a job. Mumtaz is a shy girl who loathes the work, but she forces herself to dance and flirt. However, the uncle doesn't keep his promise; he lives on her earnings, drinking them away, and never gets a job. He adds one final, unforgivable crime to the list when he gets drunk and rapes her. By this time she has caught the eye of a gangster called Potiya Sawant. When she tells Potiya what her uncle did to her, Potiya decides to "defend her honor." Potiya shoots the uncle. Mumtaz, bereft of any male protection in the dangerous slums, marries Potiya. She is determined to make the best of things. She leaves the bar and stays home to raise her two children, whom she carefully protects from the world of prostitution and gangs. However, her world unravels again when Potiya is killed. She has to return to the bar to support her children. In the end, she cannot protect them from their sordid surroundings. Her son becomes a killer, her daughter becomes a bar dancer in her turn, and Mumtaz turns to prostitution in a tragic attempt to save her son.—gavin (gunmasterM@hotmail.com)

Plot Keywords: niece, uncle, child, gangster, rapist, murderer, bleak ...

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#18. Still Alice (2014)

Storyline: Alice Howland is a renowned linguistics professor happily married with three grown children. All that begins to change when she strangely starts to forget words and then more. When her doctor diagnoses her with Early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, Alice and her family's lives face a harrowing challenge as this terminal degenerative neurological ailment slowly progresses to an inevitable conclusion they all dread. Along the way, Alice struggles to not only to fight the inner decay, but to make the most of her remaining time to find the love and peace to make simply living worthwhile.

Plot Keywords: professor, linguist, daughter, son, doctor, somber, brooding ...

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#20. Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Storyline: For two decades Doc and Lola Delaney avoided coming to terms with what Doc considered a "shot gun" marriage. Lola lost the baby and gives a lot of her affection to Sheba, a dog that disappeared a few months before the film opens. Doc blames Lola for having to drop out of medical school and not becoming a "real" doctor. Until joining AA a year ago, his escape was alcohol. Then college student Marie rents a room in their home. Doc feels passion for the first time in 20 years. But Marie has two suitors her age. Lola -- unaware of Doc's emotions --becomes as interested in Marie's future as if Marie were her daughter.—Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com>

Plot Keywords: husband, wife, college student, dark, emotional, family home, suburbia ...

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#21. Ladybird, Ladybird (1994)

Storyline: This Ken Loach docu-drama relates the story of a British woman's fight with Social Services over the care of her children. Maggie has a history of bouncing from one abusive relationship to another. She has four children, of four different fathers, who came to the attention of Social Services when they were injured in a fire. Subsequently, Maggie was found to be an "unfit mother" and her children were removed from her care. She finally meets the man of her dreams, a Paraguayan expatriate, and they start a family together. Unfortunately, Social Services seems unwilling to accept that her life has changed and rends them from their new children. She and Jorge together, and separately, fight Social Services, Immigration, and other government bureaucrats in a desperate battle to make their family whole again.—Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>

Plot Keywords: alcoholic, mother, lover, social worker, judge, bleak, intense ...

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#23. Secretariat (2010)

Storyline: Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery -- with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin -- manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years.

Plot Keywords: housewife, father, trainer, horse, husband, gripping, passionate ...

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#24. Children of a Lesser God (1986)

Storyline: Having taught at the best institutions in the country aside from other more eclectic jobs, James Leeds, with progressive methods, has just started teaching at a school for the deaf on an island off the New England coast, he assigned primarily to a speech class for the upper grades. At the school, he quickly notices the young cleaning woman, who he learns is twenty-five year old Sarah Norman and who, deaf herself, was once a student there and has been there since the age of five. He can see that she is bright, headstrong and angry, on top of which she doesn't speak, the latter issues a result of a troubled home life, her mother, her only touchstone to family, who she has purposefully not seen in eight years. As he is able to get through to most of his students to feel more and more comfortable in speaking for a more holistic life, Jim, with the reluctant blessing of the school's superintendent Dr. Curtis Franklin, who has always and still considers Sarah a proverbial pain in the ...

Plot Keywords: deaf person, teacher, mother, student, emotional, intense, school ...

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#25. Summer Hours (2008)

Storyline: In a small town, Hélène is a family matriarch who has devoted her life to preserving the legacy of her artist uncle. However, while her eldest son, Frédéric, wants to preserve her home after her passing, she harbors no such illusions as she prepares her legacy. After her death, her children realize what she anticipated as they come to terms with their inheritance's place in their own lives. In the resulting disposition of their mother's assets, treasured heirlooms of a romantic family past drift away even as their changing modern world confronts the value of their memories.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Plot Keywords: mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, emotional, moving ...

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#26. The Home Song Stories (2007)

Storyline: Rose, a Shanhainese songstress singing at nightclubs in HongKong during the 60's, marries an Australian sailor and migrates with her young son and daughter to Melbourne. Her past filled with lost innocence, she begins a cycle of dependence and desperation to create a family for herself and her children, culminating with her affair with Qi, an illegal immigrant from HongKong. Watched through the eyes of her young son, the mother's journey reveals painful truths about the human condition, the love of family and self, and the price we pay for growing up.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: singer, young boy, sailor, narrator, mother-in-law, sister, dark ...

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#27. Born Into Brothels (2004)

Storyline: Documentary photographer Zana Briski journeyed into Calcutta's underworld to photograph the city's prostitutes. In return, she offered to teach the prostitutes' children the basics of photography so that the kids could document their own lives on the streets of one of the world's poorest cities. The resulting photographs, often astonishing, were exhibited around the world; many of them are seen in this film, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005.—Jwelch5742

Plot Keywords: photographer, prostitute, young boy, young girl, mother, teacher, emotional ...

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#28. Caramel (2007)

Storyline: Six women in Beirut seek love, marriage, and companionship and find duty, friendship, and possibility. Four work at a salon: Nisrine, engaged to Bassam, with a secret she shares with her co-workers; Jamale, a divorced mother of teens, a part-time model, fearing the encroachment of time; Rima, always in pants, attracted to Siham, a client who smiles back; Layale, in love with a married man, willing to drop everything at a honk of his horn. There's also Rose, a middle-aged seamstress, who cares for Lili, old and facing dementia. Rose has a suitor; Layale has an admirer on the police force. Is delight a possibility? Is caramel a sweet or an instrument of pain?

Plot Keywords: owner, seamstress, divorcée, model, client, amusing, moving ...

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#29. The Favor (2006)

Storyline: Lawrence (played by Frank Wood), a photographer living on his own in New Jersey, rekindles a relationship with his old flame Caroline (played by Paige Turco) shortly before she dies in an accident. Her 16 year-old son Johnny (played by Ryan Donowho) has nowhere to go and Lawrence takes him in. Lawrence tries hard to be a father to Johnny but Johnny repeatedly rejects him and wreaks havoc in his home. Many dramatic and comedic events unfold, involving Johnny's love interest Mariana (played by Isidra Vega), Johnny's drug dealer (played by Jesse Kelly), Johnny's real father (played by Aldo Perez), and Lawrence's dog (played by Nikki). "The Favor" features songs by The Cure, The Troggs, The Stone Roses, Interpol, Nikki Sudden, Blondie, The Cascades, Chris Montez, The Jacobites & The Garretts.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: photographer, girlfriend, single mother, teen boy, teen girl, father figure, dark ...

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