Movies Like Big City

If you liked Big City (1948), a drama and music movie directed by Norman Taurog, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Cabrini (2024)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini arrives in 1889 New York City and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and…
2
The Jazz Singer (1927)
★ 6.1/10Also drama and music
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the…
3
Anne of Green Gables (2016)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
Anne Shirley, an orphan, is fostered by farmer Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla, who were expecting a boy to be sent them to help with their farm work. They accept Anne, who quickly endears herself to them and…
4
Evelyn (2002)
★ 6.4/10Also drama
Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it…
5
Hungry Hearts (2015)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
6
A Kid Like Jake (2018)
★ 6/10Also drama
On the eve of the admissions cycle for New York City kindergartens, Alex and Greg Wheeler have high hopes for four-year-old Jake. The director of Jake's preschool encourages them to accentuate Jake's gender expansive…
7
Too Late Blues (1961)
★ 6.4/10Also drama and music
Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his…
8
August Rush (2007)
★ 7.4/10Also drama and music
Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater…
9
Ballet Shoes (2008)
★ 6.3/10Also drama
An unusual explorer named Gum and his kindly niece adopt three orphans -- Pauline, Petrova and Posy -- and raise them as sisters in 1930s London. But the girls must fend for themselves when Gum doesn't return from one…
10
Eleanor the Great (2025)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
11
Boychoir (2015)
★ 6.8/10Also music and drama
A troubled and angry 11-year-old orphan from a small Texas town, ends up at a Boy Choir school after the death of his single mother. Completely out of his element, he finds himself in a battle of wills with a demanding…
12
Philomena (2013)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.
13
Secrets & Lies (1996)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
14
Permanent Vacation (1981)
★ 5.9/10Also drama
In downtown Manhattan, twentysomething Allie, whose father is not around and whose mother is institutionalized, is a big Charlie Parker fan. He almost subconsciously searches for meaning in his life and meets some…
15
Wonderstruck (2017)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
16
Fourteen Hours (1951)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
A young man, morally destroyed by his parents not loving him and by the fear of being not capable to make his girlfriend happy, rises on the ledge of a building with the intention of committing suicide. A policeman…
17
Music of the Heart (1999)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and music
After Roberta Guaspari separates from her husband, she receives encouragement from her mother to take up a job of a music teacher at the Central Park East School in East Harlem.
18
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980)
★ 7.3/10Also drama
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American…
19
The Secret Garden (1993)
★ 7.4/10Also drama
A young British girl born and reared in India loses her neglectful parents in an earthquake. She is returned to England to live at her uncle's castle. Her uncle is very distant due to the loss of his wife ten years…
20
Oliver Twist (1948)
★ 7.6/10Also drama
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin…