Limelight (1952), A Night at the Opera (1935), Paddington 2 (2017), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), Finding Neverland (2004), Stage Door (1937), Every Little Step (2008), Funny Girl (1968) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Opening Night movies.
Storyline: Fred and Lilly are a divorced pair of actors who are brought together by Cole Porter who has written a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play. A fight on the opening night threatens the production, as well as two thugs who have the mistaken idea that Fred owes their boss money and insist on staying next to him all night.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: 3 dimensional, 3d, spanking, husband wife relationship, hate, harp, gambler ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Two producers are putting together a Calvacade of Stars for a wartime charity show. Along with a list of well-knowns they promote the work of an unknown singer and songwriter.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: dual role, contract, boxer, bellboy, bartender, barber, autograph ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jenny Bowman (Judy Garland) is a successful singer who, while on an engagement at the London Palladium, visits David Donne (Sir Dirk Bogarde) to see her son Matt (Gregory Phillips) again, spending a few glorious days with him while his father is away in Rome in an attempt to attain the family that she never had. When David returns, Matt is torn between his loyalty to his father and his affection for Jenny.—John Teo <jt224@cam.ac.uk>
Plot Keywords: lead actor's last film, father son relationship, ferry, helicopter, hospital, lateness, lipstick ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Broadway star Valerie Stanton, breaking up with her producer-lover Gordon Dunning, unintentionally kills him. In flashback, she recalls meeting new flame Michael Morrell, and Dunning's machinations leading to the fatal argument. The next day, it appears that Valerie's former rival Marian Webster is the prime suspect. Or is suave police Captain Danbury just playing cat and mouse with her? Nicely catty dialogue.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: accidental killing, 1940s, stage, discovering a dead body, curtain call, broadway, flashback ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jane is a young woman with Asperger's syndrome who is living with her parents in Queens, New York. Bianca is her extremely protective older sister who is now moving in with her fiancé, Rob, in Brooklyn. Jane's parents are now moving to the suburbs of New Jersey and they want Jane to move in with Bianca. Bianca and Rob are not sure once they are ready for that kind of responsibility though, and Jane decides she wants her first boyfriend. This causes some strife to the point where it chafes at Jane's growing independence despite ambient noise creeping into her attention. Eventually, this leads to Bianca trying to dissuade one of her friends, Jack, from dating Jane as she views him as too unreliable for her sister.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: cookie, female bartender, bar, restaurant, cook, rooftop, apartment ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In November 1937, high school student and aspiring thespian Richard Samuels takes a day trip into New York City. There, he meets and begins a casual friendship with Gretta Adler, their friendship based on a shared love and goal of a profession in the creative arts. But also on this trip, Richard stumbles across the Mercury Theatre and meets Orson Welles, who, based on an impromptu audition, offers Richard an acting job as Lucius in his modern retelling of Julius Caesar, which includes such stalwart Mercury Theatre players as Joseph Cotten and George Coulouris. Despite others with official roles as producer John Houseman, this production belongs to Welles, the unofficial/official dictator. In other words, whatever Welles wants, the cast and crew better deliver. These requests include everything, even those of a sexual nature. Welles does not believe in conventions and will do whatever he wants, which includes not having a fixed opening date, although the unofficial opening date is in ...
Plot Keywords: inspired by true events, based on novel, 1930s, new york city, theatre, based on real person, reference to shakespeare's hamlet ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Despite dissimilarities, two middle-school boys from one-child households (Jake and Tony) form a natural friendship when Jake moves with family into his recently deceased grandfather's Brooklyn apartment above the dress shop business of Tony's mother. Extrovert Tony plays soccer, desires to become an actor (like Jake's father) and is sociable, while introvert Jake likes to draw, build his portfolio and be somewhat reclusive. Their best friend status is challenged by Jake's parents inheriting ownership of the building where Tony's mother runs her dress business, asking for three times the rent she previously paid within the upscaling neighborhood. The boys retaliate with silence, but it will likely not be enough.—statmanjeff
Plot Keywords: best friend, father son relationship, eviction, death of grandfather, friendship, classroom, playing a video game ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor's work parallel Coco's radical ideas. She wants to democratize women's fashion; he wants to redefine musical taste. Coco attends the scandalous first performance of The Rite in a chic white dress. The music and ballet are criticized as too modern, too foreign. Coco is moved but Igor is inconsolable. Paris 1920, Coco is newly wealthy and successful but grief-stricken after Boy's death in a car crash. Igor, following the Russian Revolution is now a penniless refugee living in exile in Paris. Coco is introduced to Igor by Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. The attraction between them is instant and electric. Coco invites Igor along with his wife - now sick with consumption - together with his four children and a menagerie of birds to stay at her new villa, Bel Respiro, in Garches.—Chris Greenhalgh
Plot Keywords: nudity, dance, composer, wealth, mansion, physician, fossil ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: New York, 1959. Max Bialystock was once the king of Broadway, but now all his shows close on opening night. Things turn around when he's visited by the neurotic accountant Leo Bloom, who proposes a scheme tailor-made for producers who can only make flops: raise far more money than you need, then make sure the show is despised. No one will be interested in it, so you can pocket the surplus. To this end, they produce a musical called Springtime for Hitler written by escaped Nazi Franz Liebken. Then they get the insanely flamboyant Roger De Bris to direct. Finally, they hire as a lead actress the loopy Swedish bombshell Ulla (whose last name has over 15 syllables). As opening night draws near, what can go wrong? Well, there's no accounting for taste...
Plot Keywords: scheme, based on film, based on stage musical, audition, remake, playwright, new york city ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story starts just before the Civil War, showing Fisk, Boyd, and Luke conning Southern townsfolk into buying bars of soap that, might, have a $10 gold piece inside. Found out, they're chased out of town and escape across the Mason-Dixon Line just as the war starts. Fisk hatches a plan for him and Boyd to return to the South and buy cotton then smuggle it to the North where Luke is to sell it to the Northern textile mills. By the end of the war they have made millions, only to find out that Luke had been re-investing their money into Confederate Bonds. This fact-based movie shows Jim Fisk as one of the greatest con-men and entrepreneurs in history. It concludes with his involvement in "Black Friday", the Financial Panic of 1869, with fellow financier Jay Gould (who's not represented in the movie) and their attempt to corner the U.S. gold market. There's a love triangle between Fisk, Boyd and Mansfield, which is also based on historical accounts.—AzRanger
Plot Keywords: based on book, opera house, partnership, photographer, railroad, romantic rivalry, self sacrifice ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Anne Welles, a bright, brash young New England college grad leaves her Peyton Place-ish small town and heads for Broadway, where she hopes to find an exciting job and sophisticated men. During her misadventures in Manhattan and, later, Hollywood, she shares experiences with two other young hopefuls: Jennifer North, a statuesque, Monroe-ish actress who wants to be accepted as a human being, but is regarded as a sex object by all the men she meets, and Neely O'Hara, a talented young actress who's accused of using devious means by a great older star (Helen Lawson) to reach the top, pulling an "All About Eve"-type deception in order to steal a good role away from her.—filmfactsman
Plot Keywords: show business, based on novel, melodrama, drug addiction, price of fame, pill popping, manhattan new york city ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Douglas is a lonesome record salesman and a true fan of the actress Sally Ross. Every day he writes her gleaming letters of love. But the only response he gets are formal letters. So his love turns into hatred.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Plot Keywords: actress, based on novel, murder, obsession, stalking, secretary, stalker ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In this sequel to Saturday Night Fever, former disco king Tony Manero has left Brooklyn and lives in Manhattan. He stays in a cheap hotel and works as a dance instructor and as a waiter at a dance club, trying to succeed as a professional dancer on Broadway. The breakaway from his Brooklyn life, family and friends seems to have matured Tony and refined his personality, represented by his diminished accent and his avoidance of alcohol and profanity. However, certain attitudes have not changed, as with his most recent girlfriend, who's also the singer of a local rock band.
Plot Keywords: scene during opening credits, director cameo, 1980s, pantyhose, title appears in song, limousine, dancing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Robin, who is married to her girlfriend for half a dozen years, and Lacie, someone who never had a lasting relationship, are both cast to play lesbian lovers in a Los Angeles stage play. Innocently, the stage director, Gabriel runs the actresses through a series of rehearsals designed to "bring out the intimacy" in each performer. Soon the two women find themselves increasingly and undeniably attracted to each other and overcome with desire. They must ask themselves whether this relationship is manufactured, created for the sake of the "girl play", or is it true love?—Sujit R. Varma
Plot Keywords: bare breasts, based on play, independent film, based on true story, rainstorm, mountain cabin, lesbian relationship ...
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