Movies Like Leave 'Em Laughing

If you liked Leave 'Em Laughing (1981), a drama and tv movie movie directed by Jackie Cooper, 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
Anne of Green Gables (2016)
★ 7.2/10Also drama and tv movie
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…
2
Girl in the Box (2016)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and tv movie
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
3
Normal (2003)
★ 6.7/10Also drama and tv movie
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
4
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003)
★ 7.3/10Also drama and tv movie
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
5
The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.
6
The Christmas Shoes (2002)
★ 6.8/10Also drama and tv movie
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second…
7
Mickey's Tale of Two Witches (2021)
★ 7/10Also tv movie
On Halloween, Mickey tells a tale of two witches-in-training, Minnie and Daisy, who must pass four tests to graduate from the With Academy in Happy Haunt Hills.
8
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and tv movie
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young…
9
Big Fish (2003)
★ 7.7/10Also drama
Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will…
10
Cheaters (2000)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
11
The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act (2026)
★ 8.8/10Also drama
With Caine gone and the circus dark, the cast are left with only the mistakes and traumas of their pasts to keep them company. As the prospect of eternity closes in around them, they discover the truth about the…
12
Nowhere to Run (1993)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
Escaped convict Sam Gillen single-handedly takes on ruthless developers who are determined to evict a widow with two young children.
13
My Dinner with Hervé (2018)
★ 6.3/10Also drama and tv movie
An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
14
Cardboard Boxer (2016)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
15
Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (2006)
★ 6.1/10Also drama and tv movie
A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.
16
Girl in the Bunker (2018)
★ 7.1/10Also tv movie and drama
When Elizabeth is abducted by a fugitive sexual predator, she realizes she must take matters into her own hands and plot her escape. Based on a true story.
17
Hardball (2001)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
18
The Plague Dogs (1982)
★ 7.8/10Also drama
Two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, struggle to survive in the countryside after escaping from an animal research laboratory. They're pursued by search parties and then the military after rumours spread that they could be…
19
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…
20
Amber Alert (2024)
★ 7.2/10Also drama
A ride-share turns into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse after it follows a car fitting the description of an AMBER Alert.