I know things about Lifetime movies.The titles are generally simple yet informative. Kidnapped in Paradise, for example, is about a woman who is kidnapped, in paradise. Prosecuting Casey Anthony, is about the prosecution of Casey Anthony. Murder in the Hamptons is about a murder, in the Hamptons.
In some cases, Lifetime movies refract “true life” tales with which we are vaguely familiar through the news and/or idle gossip. They tell us what we already know or what we would like to know without telling us the truth. They allow us to believe that the grisly murders and salacious scandals can be neatly summarized in two or four hours with a tidy, printed epilogue on the screen when the movie is over letting us know how everything turned out. In such epilogues, people are often in jail for a very long time, or living happily ever after. Other times, Lifetime movies traffic in commercial fiction. Nora Roberts has much of her oeuvre set to film via Lifetime.
A rotating set of actors stars in these movies—they look familiar but you cannot be quite sure why. There is something about the budget production values, shoddy script writing, anemic acting and, the Canadian accents I find irresistible. Here is an incomplete list of Lifetime movies, categorized.
Amish movies
An Amish Murder
The 19th Wife
Amish Grace
Bad Marriages
The Burning Bed
A Woman Scorned
Hidden Away
Cries Unheard: The Donna Yaklich Story
Talhotblond
Devil’s Pond
Fatal Desire
Going for Broke
Another Woman’s Husband
Biopic
House of Versace
Betty & Coretta
Anna Nicole
Liz & Dick
Coco Chanel
Ring of Fire
Aaliyah: The Princess of R & B
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story
DRAMA
Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?
Lies My Mother Told Me
Co-ed Call Girl
Confessions of a Go-Go Girl
Bad to the Bone
My Stepson, My Lover
Lovesick: Secrets of a Sex Addict
Wisegal
Last Chance Café
Widow on the Hill
We Were the Mulvaneys
The Advocate’s Devil
Flirting with Danger
Gracie’s Choice
A Face to Die For
Lying to Be Perfect
Deadly Betrayal
Sex and the Single Mom
More Sex and the Single Mom
Walking the Halls
Secrets of Eden
Cradle of Lies
Crimes of Passion: She Woke Up Pregnant
Sleeping With the Devil
The Dive From Clausen’s Pier
Social Nightmare
Mom, Dad, and Her
Hollywood Wives: The New Generation
Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape
Homecoming
Friends ‘Til the End
Past Obsessions
Her Perfect Spouse
A Job to Kill For
The Pastor’s Wife
A Little Thing Called Murder
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
Uncaged Heart
The Eleventh Victim
The Trainer
Last Exit
Twisted Desire
The Boy Next Door
In the Dark
Road Rage
The Party Never Stops
The Wife He Met Online
A Nanny’s Revenge
The Good Mother
A Sister’s Nightmare
Destination: Infestation
How I Married My High School Crush
Just Ask My Children
Holiday Movies
12 Men of Christmas
Ebbie
A Diva’s Christmas Carol
Will You Merry Me?
Finding Mrs. Claus
Undercover Christmas
Christmas Angel
Dear Santa
The Christmas Blessing
The Road to Christmas
A Nanny for Christmas
The Christmas Consultant
A Christmas Wedding
A Chance of Snow
Christmas in Paradise
Comfort and Joy
Nora Roberts
Blue Smoke
Montana Sky
Tribute
Northern Lights
Angels Fall
Sanctuary
Carolina Moon
High Noon
Carnal Innocence
Ripped From the Headlines
Human Trafficking
A Life Interrupted
Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story
A Date With Darkness: The Trial and Capture of Andrew Luster
She Made Them Do It
Drew Peterson: Untouchable
Half a Dozen Babies
The Craigslist Killer
Murder in the Hamptons
Scott Peterson
Who is Clark Rockefeller?
Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy
An Officer and a Murderer
Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret
The Two Mr. Kissels
Perfect Town, Perfect Murder: The JonBenet Ramsey Story
Prosecuting Casey Anthony
Fatal Honeymoon
Blue Eyed Butcher
All American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story
Justice for Natalee Holloway
The Capture of the Green River Killer
The I-5 Killer
Held Hostage
The Elizabeth Smart Story
Natalee Holloway
Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story
Identity Theft: The Michelle Brown Story
Stolen Babies
Baby Sellers
I Know My First Name is Steven
When Andrew Came Home
A Father for Brittany
Abducted: The Carlina White Story
Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story
Baby For Sale
Adopting Terror
The Surrogacy Trap
Abducted: A Father’s Love
Hush
My Baby is Missing
Supernatural
The House Next Door
Haunting Sarah
Last Hours in Suburbia
Possessing Piper Rose
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Teens Gone Wild
Forever 16
Fab Five
Walking the Halls
Seven Deadly Sins
Betrayed at 17
Triple Dog
Restless Virgins
Last Hours in Suburbia
Sexting in Suburbia
The Bling Ring
Terror in the Family
The Cheating Pact
Accused at 17
The Pregnancy Pact
Teenage Bank Heist
Poison Ivy: The Secret Society
She’s Too Young
Everybody’s Doing It
Dangerous Child
Teen Traumas
Speak
No One Would Tell
Reviving Ophelia
Sharing the Secret
Cyberstalker
Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life
The Truth About Jane
Odd Girl Out
Not Like Everyone Else
The Babysitter’s Seduction
She’s Too Young
Hunger Point
Fifteen and Pregnant
Mom at Sixteen
The Obsession
Too Young to Marry
Escape from Polygamy
Queen Sized
The Boy She Met Online
Dying to Belong
Every Mother’s Worst Fear
Stalked at Seventeen
Teacher, Teacher
Student Seduction
Dirty Teacher
Fatal Lessons: The Good Teacher
Tags: canadian accents are so charming, i get so mad when they show dreary murder shows on LMN instead of Lifetime Movies, lifetime movies, so little time, so much drama
I think “Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?” is possibly the best movie title ever thought up.
I really really hope mother said no.
I will watch the hell out of that film, and I don’t even know what it’s about.
The only thing you need to know about it is that Tori Spelling is in it! Once you know that, you have to watch it.
My all-time favorite Lifetime movie title
Is “Christmas Shoes” a Lifetime movie? I can’t remember whether it is. It certainly FEELS like a Lifetime Christmas movie.
I think it’s a terrible, terrible “song” that always gets played around Christmas.
Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my mama, please
It’s Christmas eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, daddy says there’s not much time
You see she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful, if mama meets Jesus tonight
(Just a little taste of the lyrics for those not in the know!)
and also what’s your return policy
because if mama meets Jesus tonight, technically that’s still inside the seven-days-cash-or-store-credit window, right
I think that one is actually a Hallmark movie. But spiritually, Hallmark movies might as well be Lifetime movies.
I think Lifetime may steal it now and then. How can they not? It has Rob Lowe as the disgruntled shopper whose heart eventually softens in the face of such a tragedy.
It’s a made-for-TV movie, but not specifically a Lifetime movie, no. First it was a song (2000), then a book (2001), then a movie (2002).
[It’s my mom’s favorite song/movie, because apparently she likes to cry at Christmas].
Patton Oswalt has a great bit about that song and how insanely screwed up it is. Plus, someone animated it. Worth googling .
This is a fantastic list. Just one question … where would the Grumpy Cat movie fit in?
The 19th Wife is actually about the FLDS, who are less friendly than the Amish. Maybe it would fit better under teen traumas.
That what I thought, there is a book too, dunno if it is related.
I always have a powerful curiosity for any movie titled “X: The [person’s name] story.”
I want the entire Lifetime Movie Collection for xmas. !!!!!
Last Chance Café is legitimately one of my FAVORITE paperback romance novels turned tv movies it is DELIGHTFUL and i LOVE IT.
The Pastors Wife is the most melodramatic of all dramas and i LIVE FOR IT– LIVE FOR IT I TELL YOU!
Roxane + Butter community — remember that Lifetime movie starring the Prison Wardens Wife where a wrongfully incarcerated man uses her as a hostage to escape and then they fall in love in his cabin in the woods and then she can live out her dream as being a high school swim coach?! Because that is the greatest Lifetime movie of them all.
So…Lifetime movies seem to use colons in their titles the same way academic theses do!
The only actually upsetting/non-hilarious Lifetime movies:
-Amish Grace
-Just Ask my Children
Possessing Piper Rose, The Exorcism of Emily Rose … and let us not forget Audrey Rose and Rosemary’s Baby.
Pro Tip: If your name incorporates “Rose” in any form, you might want to think about changing it. Science.
Wait – isn’t Lying to Be Perfect a romantic comedy? Based on the book The Cinderella Pact? It *sounds* like such a dramatic title, but I’m pretty sure there is a distinct lack of murder and a large amount of banter and a happy ending.
(Sorry, Roxane, I think we watched enough Lifetime in grad school that I’m allowed to call you out on this. 😛 )
I realize that this is an incomplete list; but Susan Lucci really deserves her own entire category. I see the perennial holiday classic Ebbie on the list (also known by its alternate title, Miracle at Christmas), but in addition, let us neither forget nor neglect her other Lifetime tours de force, including (but again, not limited to) the following:
Blood on Her Hands
French Silk
Seduced and Betrayed
Between Love and Hate
The Woman Who Sinned
ALL HAIL LA LUCCI.
Also I’m not sure whether I ought to be embarrassed by how many of the titles in the master list I recognize, or to wear it like a badge of honor.
“My Stepson, My Lover”
I knew when Dad brought home his new girlfriend Phaedra that things were going to go downhill.
These are all real?! I am both impressed and terrified.
My mom and I have a long-standing game where one of us reads the title of a Lifetime movie off the cable guide on the TV and the other guesses the plot. We’re usually pretty close.
My college roommates and I watched so many Lifetime Movies. We were especially partial to Mini’s First Time and The Pregnancy Pact – the second one is awful even by Lifetime standards, but what a title!
The only thing you need to know about it is that Tori Spelling is in it! Once you know that, you have to watch it.
What about “Too Young to Be a Dad”? It has one of the best Lifetime lines of all time: “It’s a baby, not a loose tooth!” Oh, okay.
also turns out he was Not Too Young to Be a Dad because he totally goes against the mother’s wishes and their signed stupid adoption contract at the last second and keeps the baby after all and everyone is extremely happy about it (presumably except for the mother and the adoptive parents and possibly the kid in ten years) and there are no repercussions. THE END.
ETA: Let us never forget Liz Lemon’s fave Lifetime movie, “My Stepson Is My Cyberhusband.”
So I’m usually kind of a tough-ass bitch. but when everything gets a bit much, I allow myself to retreat into a comforting girly cocoon of Lifetime movies and wine/ice-cream/chocolate. When I’m more angry than sad/overwhelmed i sub out the lifetime movies for 48 hour mysteries, etc. THERAPY.
Also I NEED to see “Crimes of Passion: She Woke Up Pregnant” — it sounds legitimately terrifying. I’m worried it might happen to me.
AAAAH, I love Lifetime movies. “Fatal” is their favorite title adjective, most likely. See also: Fatal Trust, Fatal Reunion.
One of my favorite aspects of Lifetime movies — speaking of Fatal Reunion — is their repeated use of off-brand technology that’s about 5 years behind the current standard. My favorite is probably She’s Too Young (starring overbearing mom Marcia Gay Harden, who ALWAYS plays overbearing moms in Lifetime movies) where she uses an AIM clone that looks like the inside of a Purple Moon game.
Is it just me or is “Scott Peterson” like, the laziest goddamn name for a movie EVER?
I’m laughing so hard at the Stolen Babies category. Am I a terrible person?
I love the lists, as a hard core LTM consumer, but some of these predate Lifetime (The Burning Bed) and are just TV movies or were theatrical releases that didn’t do well and were just aired on LTM eventually (Speak, The House Next Door).
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What is the Lifetime movie where the teenage girl goes out on her birthday to the store and is murdered? I can’t think of the title!!
Roxane, I loved your book and now have discovered your blog. I can’t believe there is another “feminist” and “thinking woman” out there who loves – and admits to – liking Lifetime Movies. If I may be so bold as to share my take on it.. .http://rosythereviewer.blogspot.com/2014/01/lifetime-movies-baby-boomers.html
You and I are also on the same page about Magic Mike XXL! 🙂