The Magic Toyshop (1987)

Director
David Wheatley

Main cast
Tom Bell; Caroline Milmoe; Killian McKenna; Patricia Kerrigan; Lorcan Cranitch

Genres
Drama, Fantasy

Description
After her parents are killed, a young girl is sent to London to live with her uncle and his family. Her uncle, who is a toymaker, secretly has the power to make his toys come to life, but he also maintains dictatorial control over his family and intends to exercise the same control over the new arrival.


Similar movies

Calvin and his friends, who all live in an orphanage, find old shoes with the faded letters MJ connected to a powerline. One stormy night, they go to get the shoes when Calvin and the shoes are struck by lightning. Calvin now has unbelievable basketball powers and has the chance to play for the NBA.
After losing his father, 10-year-old Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucia School, which shelters orphans of the Republican militia and politicians, and is taken in by the steely headmistress, Carmen, and the kindly professor, Casares. Soon after his arrival, Carlos has a run-in with the violent caretaker, Jacinto. Gradually, Carlos uncovers the secrets of the school, including the youthful ghost that wanders the grounds.
Together with his teenage sister and a horde of orphans, young Guy Maddin lazes away his under-stimulated youth on the mysterious island he will someday inherit. In the lighthouse orphanage in which they all live, their every move is watched over by their overbearing and tyrannical mother while their father, a scientist and inventor, works away secretively in the basement. When new adoptive parents discover mysterious head wounds on their children, teen detectives Wendy and Chance Hale - brother and sister sleuths known as the "Lightbulb Kids" - visit the island to launch an investigation. As the investigation progresses, the kids are led into the darkest regions of revelation and repression as the terrible secrets of Guy's family are revealed.
After the Evil Queen marries the King, she performs a violent coup in which the King is murdered and his daughter, Snow White, is taken captive. Almost a decade later, a grown Snow White is still in the clutches of the Queen. In order to obtain immortality, The Evil Queen needs the heart of Snow White. After Snow escapes the castle, the Queen sends the Huntsman to find her in the Dark Forest.
Found inside a shining stalk of bamboo by an old bamboo cutter and his wife, a tiny girl grows rapidly into an exquisite young lady. The mysterious young princess enthralls all who encounter her - but ultimately she must confront her fate, the punishment for her crime.
For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.
Waxing nostalgic about the bittersweet passage from childhood to puberty in this tender coming-of-age tale, four childhood girlfriends -- Teeny, Chrissy, Samantha and Roberta -- recall the magical summer of 1970. During their walk down memory lane, they reconcile experiences with boys, secrets, bullies and more.
An orphan in a facility run by the mean Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett), Annie (Aileen Quinn) believes that her parents left her there by mistake. When a rich man named Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks (Albert Finney) decides to let an orphan live at his home to promote his image, Annie is selected. While Annie gets accustomed to living in Warbucks' mansion, she still longs to meet her parents. So Warbucks announces a search for them and a reward, which brings out many frauds.
Jesse investigates the suspicious death of a young friend while the police force deals with the arrogant new police chief who is the son-in-law of a town councilman.
As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.
Set in New York City in the sweltering summer, The Wackness tells the story of a troubled teenage drug dealer, who trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist. Things get more complicated when he falls for one of his classmates, who just happens to be the doctors daughter. This is a coming-of-age story about sex, drugs, music and what it takes to be a man.
Heidi is orphaned and her selfish maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her grumpy old paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society...through her angelic ways and sheer love. When Aunt Dete steals Heidi away to be the companion of a rich man's invalid daughter, the grand-father is enraged and sets out to get her back.
Chen Tian is a schoolgirl in Hong Kong about to leave for Beijing for college. Before she leaves for good, she decides to spend an unforgettable trip with her best friends in a distant fishing village. There she discovers love for the first time. The encounter ever so brief, but has left something she can take away with her forever. At the same fishing village, Ah Mei, a girl who's had a tough time in the big city, comes back home to the village to revisit her past. She finds herself reuniting with two boys from her childhood. But time has quietly tarnished their friendship, without them ever aware of the innocence lost.
Anti-Semitism, race relations, coming of age, and fathers and sons: in Baltimore from fall, 1954, to fall, 1955.
Four people with different values and standards meet in the urban chaos of Copacabana. Rita and Waldick come from the country, and befriend two Rio de Janeiro native guys, upon arrival: the playboy and surfer Paulo Roberto and a pimp called Tim. Written by [email protected]
Good girls Merritt, Melanie, Tuggle and Angie - all students at mid-western Penmore University - are planning on going to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for spring break to get away from the mid-western snow despite not having much money to spend once there. On the drive down, they admit their real purpose is to go where the boys are.
Battle Hymn was inspired by the true story of American minister Dean Hess, played here with rare sensitivity by Rock Hudson. A bomber pilot during World War II, Hess inadvertently releases a bomb which destroys a German orphanage. Tortured by guilt, Hess relocates in Korea after the war to offer his services as a missionary. Combining the best elements of Christianity and Eastern spiritualism, Hess establishes a large home for orphans. The preacher's efforts are threatened when the Korean "police action" breaks out in 1950. Battle Hymn was one of several collaborations between Rock Hudson and director Douglas Sirk--though Sirk felt that Robert Stack would have been better suited to the role of Rev. Hess.
A solitary middle-aged bachelor and a naive Irish teenager transform one another's lives to arrive at a place of recognition, redemption and wisdom in Atom Egoyan's adaptation of William Trevor's celebrated 1994 novel. Seventeen and pregnant, Felicia travels to England in search of her lover and is found instead by Joseph Ambrose Hilditch, a helpful catering manager whose kindness masks a serial killer. Hilditch has murdered several young women, but he has no conscious awareness of the crimes; like Felicia, he doesn't see his true self. Felicia's Journey is a story of innocence lost and regained: Felicia awakens to the world's dangers and duplicities; and Hilditch, who grew up lonely and unloved, comes to realize what was taken from him, and what he himself has taken.
A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.
Marcela can't bear Jarda any longer, so she threatens divorce and takes the kids to her mom's, whose husband is a creep. While Marcela is there, Jarda is jailed, because he is part of a gang steeling cars and they get caught in the act. Benes, the urbane man whose car got stolen by Jarda and his gang, befriends Marcela. Soon she feels drawn to Benes and all of a sudden she must make up her mind: Jarda is still sexually attractive to her, but Benes offers security, and her own body and mind may not pull at the same strand.
A coming-of-age story based on the best-selling novel by Stephen Chbosky, which follows 15-year-old freshman Charlie, an endearing and naive outsider who is taken under the wings of two seniors. A moving tale of love, loss, fear and hope - and the unforgettable friends that help us through life.
A blind, uneducated white girl is befriended by a black man, who becomes determined to help her escape her impoverished and abusive home life.
High school wrestler Louden Swain is a man obsessed , trying to shed 23 pounds in a dangerously short time and take on Shute, the undefeated, tough-as-nails 168-pound champion who's the best wrestler in the state. Matthew Modine stars as the mop-headed student undeterred in his Vision Quest...until a day a sexy drifter threatens to pin Louden and his dreams to the mat of unrequited love.
An orphaned girl is taken in by a snobbish family at the insistence of their rich, crotchety uncle, even as her devoted aviator godfather fights for custody.
Almost Famous is an autobiographical inspired film about a 15-year-old who is hired by Rolling Stone magazine to follow and interview a rock band during their tour. A film about growing up, first love, disappointment, and the life of a rock star.
A smart teenage girl comes of age in a small town with her self-centered parents who had her when they were teenagers.
Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.
A tenderly romantic coming-of-age story as two boys in a British school fall in love.
The film tells a story of a divorced couple trying to raise their young son. The story follows the boy for twelve years, from first grade at age 6 through 12th grade at age 17-18, and examines his relationship with his parents as he grows.
A group of boys are marooned on an island after their plane crashes. With no adult survivors, they create their own "micro-society". Ralph is elected "chief", and he organises shelter and fire. Jack, the head of the choir takes his boys hunting for food (wild pigs). A bitter rivalry develops between Jack and Ralph as both want to be in charge. The "hunters" become savage and primal, under Jack's rule, while Ralph tries to keep his group civilised. The growing hostility between them leads to a bloody and frightening climax.
Coming-of age feature, set in a New South Wales country town in the 1960s, about a 15 year-old boy. It follows his loves and how he copes with life's problems such as death and departure.
Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.
The coming of age of a youth named Sonny in a small Texas town in the 1950s.
Coming-of-age adventure about two teenage brothers and their struggles to grow up, on their own, after their mother dies and their father leaves them.
The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.
Based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist is about an orphan boy who runs away from a workhouse and meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. Oliver is taken in by the pickpocket and he joins a household of young boys who are trained to steal for their master.
Silent as a painting, the movie shows us day-dreamer Hermie and his friends Oscy and Benjie spending the summer of '42 on an US island with their parents - rather unaffected by WWII. While Oscy's main worries are the when and how of getting laid, Hermie honestly falls in love with the older Dorothy, who's married to an army pilot. When her husband returns to the front, Hermie shyly approaches her. Written by Bob Dawson
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.
Joe Toy, on the verge of adolescence, finds himself increasingly frustrated by his single father, Frank's attempts to manage his life. Declaring his freedom once and for all, he escapes to a clearing in the woods with his best friend, Patrick, and a strange kid named Biaggio. He announces that they are going to build a house there, free from responsibility and parents. Once their makeshift abode is finished, the three young men find themselves masters of their own destiny, alone in the woods.
At the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley. Anne's a dreamer with an unusual point of view, far removed from Marilla's pragmatic ways, and it's only on trial that Marilla agrees to keep Anne.
In a world connected by YouTube, iTunes, and Facebook, Lola and her friends navigate the peer pressures of high school romance and friendship while dodging their sometimes overbearing and confused parents. When Lola's mom, Anne, "accidentally" reads her teenage daughter's racy journal, she realizes just how wide their communication gap has grown.
Set in 2002, an abandoned 5-year-old boy living in a rundown orphanage in a small Russian village is adopted by an Italian family.
Diggers is a coming-of-age story directed by Katherine Dieckmann. It portrays four working-class friends who grow up in The Hamptons, on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, as clam diggers in 1976. Their fathers were clam diggers as well as their grandfathers before them. They must cope with and learn to face the changing times in both their personal lives and their neighborhood.
Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?
Directed by Martin Davidson and Stephen Verona, The Lords of Flatbush is a low budget film starring Perry King, Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone (who also wrote additional dialog). Set in the late 1950s, the coming-of-age story follows four Brooklyn teenagers known as The Lords of Flatbush. The Lords chase girls, steal cars, play pool and hang out at a local malt shop. The film focuses on Chico (King) attempting to win over Jane (Susan Blakely), a girl who wants little to do with him, and Stanley (Stallone), who impregnates his girlfriend Frannie, who wants him to marry her.
About young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
An outrageous, affectionate look at coming of age in the Eisenhower era in Brooklyn.
When the popular, restless Landon Carter is forced to participate in the school drama production he falls in love with Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's minister. Jamie has a "to-do" list for her life and also a very big secret she must keep from Landon.
On one evening in a decade of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, the innocence of youth and family unravels. Five parallel coming-of-age stories dramatize the stages of grief. A youthful mother in a custody battle over her children, finds tranquility with the bottle. The abuse of her ex-husband still haunts the children; a nineteen year old drug addict, and his younger brother, a bullied closet homosexual.There's the story of the dog; a teen who offers sexual favors to gain acceptance, the challenged classmate who would do anything for her love, and the redhead beauty, haunted by a secret, tragic past. These lives and others will change forever on this final evening before their hangout, The Toy Soldiers Roller Rink, closes its doors for the final time.
Dean Randall has sponsored a young Chinese orphan Mei Mei for many years, when she arrives in Sydney out of the blue to thank him, their lives are changed forever.
"The Journey of Jared Price" is a gay-themed coming-of-age 2000 film written, produced and directed by Academy Award winner Dustin Lance Black. Black won the Oscar award for Best Original Screenplay for "Milk". The Journey of Jared Price was Black's first feature film. A hustler for a roommate, a wealthy Hollywood executive for a boss, a lonely blind woman and a loveable new best friend make "The Journey of Jared Price" an adventure you will never forget. Jared Price is a small town boy who arrives in Hollywood with a few hundred bucks and a lifetime of dreams. See how he handles each situation he gets into and grows in his understanding of who he is. When what he thinks is his first love turns out to be false, see how he is helped and given the strength to stay in L.A. and try again. This film will remind you that love is worth waiting for and that there is always hope.
A Roman Catholic teenage boy in Glace Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia during the 1930s faces various growing-up problems: Should be become a priest? What should he do about the murder he witnessed, committed by a local cop and upstanding parishioner? And how far should he go with his girl friend, who happens to be the murderer's daughter?
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 of his adventures. Together, they nurture their passions for acting, aviation and ballet in this charming TV adaptation of Noel Streatfield's novel.
Bernard Chanticleer's father gives him two simple words of advice: "Grow up." Bernard knows that his first step is to find a girl who's "willing," but he passes up a sure thing, Amy Partlett, for a more elusive goal. Her name is Barbara Darling, an inscrutable go-go dancer. More than a few obstacles keep Bernard from his dream world. There's his doting mother, who mails him locks of her hair and weeps at the thought of her baby as a man; there's a malicious rooster, trained to attack pretty girls, patrolling the halls of his New York City rooming house; and most of all, there's Barbara herself. She turns out to be a man hater, emotionally scarred by the lecherous wooden-legged hypnotherapist who "counseled" her in high school. All in all, Bernard finds himself in an improbable universe with a calculated clumsiness designed to evoke his confusing coming-of-age.
Julius and Vincent Benedict are the results of an experiment that would allow for the perfect child. Julius was planned and grows to athletic proportions. Vincent is an accident and is somewhat smaller in stature. Vincent is placed in an orphanage while Julius is taken to a south seas island and raised by philosophers. Vincent becomes the ultimate low life and is about to be killed by loan sharks.
The early 1960s: In preparation for his Bar Mitzvah, a Jewish boy, Max Glick (Noam Zylberman) from a small Manitoba community with an overbearing family tries to navigate his coming-of-age with his family's condescension and bigotry using his sarcastic, Jewish humour. The town's rabbi dies, and a sub-plot develops in which Max's father (Aaron Schwartz) and grandfather (Jan Rubes)-both synagogue leaders-are saddled with a traditional Hassidic rabbi who sticks out like a sore thumb among the otherwise assimilated Jewish community. To make matters more difficult, Max likes a Catholic girl (14 year old Fairuza Baulk in just her third film), whom he later competes with in a piano competition. The quirky, fun-loving rabbi tries to help him with his problems, yet harbours a secret ambition of his own. Filmed in Winnipeg and rural Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada.
Hugo is an orphan boy living in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. He learned to fix clocks and other gadgets from his father and uncle which he puts to use keeping the train station clocks running. The only thing that he has left that connects him to his dead father is an automaton (mechanical man) that doesn't work without a special key which Hugo needs to find to unlock the secret he believes it contains. On his adventures, he meets with a shopkeeper, George Melies, who works in the train station and his adventure-seeking god-daughter. Hugo finds that they have a surprising connection to his father and the automaton, and he discovers it unlocks some memories the old man has buried inside regarding his past.
The romantic and coming-of-age misadventures of a 13-year-old American living in Germany.
After being struck and killed by lightning, a young man recounts the way he blackmailed his fellow classmates into contributing to his literary magazine.
Movie star Roxy Carmichael is abandoning the bright lights of Hollywood, Calif. and returning to her small Ohio hometown -- at least long enough to dedicate a city building. And now the whole town of Clyde is bracing for Carmichael's return, most of all her now-married old flame Denton Webb and troubled teen Dinky Bossetti. An orphan with few friends, Dinky is convinced that Carmichael is her birth mother, and that the actress will reclaim her when she returns.

© Valossa 2015–2024