🏷 Discover The Best Ambition Movies & TV Shows To Watch Today

29 titles with this tag

Discovering the world of cinema and television reveals a rich tapestry of stories centered around ambition. From the relentless pursuit of dreams to the challenges faced along the way, these films and shows inspire audiences to reach for their goals. Join us as we explore some of the best movies and TV shows that capture the essence of ambition, showcasing characters who strive for greatness against all odds.

Cast

Jaafar Jackson

Colman Domingo

Nia Long

Juliano Krue Valdi

Michael (2026)

8.7 3.5K votes

Genre: Drama, Music

Country: United States of America

Duration: 128 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: The story of Michael Jackson, one of the most influential artists the world has ever known, and his life beyond the music. His journey from the discovery of his extraordinary talent as the lead of the Jackson Five, to the visionary artist whose creative ambition fueled a relentless pursuit to become the biggest entertainer in the world, highlighting both his life off-stage and some of the most iconic performances from his early solo career.

Plot: child abuse, sibling relationship, abusive father, ambition, biography, singer, period drama, music history, ...

Time: 1970s, 1980s, 1960s

Cast

Hu Ge

Ma Yili

Tang Yan

Xin Zhilei

Blossoms Shanghai (2023) TV Show

8.6 66 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: China, Hong Kong

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 30

Story: Set against the backdrop of massive economic growth in the 1990s, the story follows A Bao, a self-made millionaire and his journey from being a young opportunist with a troubled past to accumulating dazzling wealth in the city of Shanghai. It also follows his entanglement with four women who represent the pursuits of his life: adventure, honour, love and innocence.

Plot: based on novel or book, loyalty, ambition, longing, stock market, lyrical, trade war

Time: 1990s

Place: shanghai

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun (2019) TV Show

8.2 294 votes

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Science Fiction

Country: Japan

Seasons: 4

Episodes: 89

Audience: TV-14

Story: Fourteen-year-old Iruma Suzuki has just been abandoned and sold to a demon by his irresponsible parents! Surprisingly, the next thing he knows he's living with the demon who has adopted him as his new grandson and has been transferred into a school in the Netherworld where his new demon grandfather works as the principal. Thus begins the cowardly Iruma-kun's extraordinary school life among the otherworldly as he faces his true self, takes on challenges, and rises to become someone great.

Plot: magic, adoption, ambition, supernatural, hell, high school, based on comic, cross dressing, ...

Cast

Dilraba Dilmurat

Yang Yang

Pan Yueming

Hu Ke

You Are My Glory (2021) TV Show

8.2 67 votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: China

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 32

Story: Qiao Jingjing, a celebrity, and Yu Tu, an aerospace engineer were high school classmates. Qiao Jingjing confessed to Yu Tu twice but was rejected both times. Ten years later, Qiao Jingjing became a top celebrity. She wants to become the endorser of a video game but was exposed that her gaming skills are super bad. By chance, she meets Yu Tu, who is now an aerospace engineer and is currently feeling lost about his career. Under Qiao Jingjing's set-up, Yu Tu becomes her gaming coach. They slowly fall in love over time.

Plot: ambition, romance, first love, entertainment industry, loving, friends to lovers, famous actress, admiring, ...

Cast

Chishu016b Ryu016b

Chieko Higashiyama

Setsuko Hara

Haruko Sugimura

Tokyo Story (1953)

8.2 1.2K votes

Genre: Drama

Country: Japan

Duration: 137 min.

Audience: U

Story: The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

Plot: fish, beach, dreams, baby, coma, parent child relationship, peace, boat, ...

Cast

Caleb McLaughlin

Gabrielle Union

Stephen Curry

Aaron Pierre

GOAT (2026)

8.1 903 votes

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family

Country: United States of America

Duration: 100 min.

Audience: PG

Story: A small goat with big dreams gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play roarball, a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world.

Style: heartwarming

Plot: underdog, friendship, sports, allies, ambition, bullying, challenge, basketball, ...

Only Fools and Horses (1981) TV Show

8.1 310 votes

Genre: Comedy

Country: United Kingdom

Seasons: 7

Episodes: 45

Story: Only Fools and Horses.... Is a British sitcom created and written by John Sullivan. Seven series were originally transmitted on BBC One from 1981 to 1991, with sixteen sporadic Christmas specials aired until 2003.In working-class Peckham in south-east London, ambitious market trader Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter and his younger half-brother Rodney, explore their highs and lows in life, in particular their attempts to get rich.Initially not an immediate hit and receiving little promotion early on, it later achieved consistently high ratings, and the 1996 episode "Time on Our Hands" (originally billed as the series finale) holds the record for the biggest UK audience for a sitcom episode, attracting 24.3 million viewers. The series bears a significant influence on British culture, contributing several words and phrases to the English language.

Plot: london, england, flat, ambition, grandfather, van, brother, uncle, ...

Cast

Toshiru014d Mifune

Isuzu Yamada

Takashi Shimura

Akira Kubo

Throne of Blood (1957)

7.9 991 votes

Genre: Drama, History

Country: Japan

Duration: 108 min.

Audience: 12

Story: Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

Plot: samurai, based on novel or book, prophecy, castle, siege, ambition, betrayal, black and white, ...

Place: japan

Gilmore Girls (2000) TV Show

7.9 1.3K votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 7

Episodes: 153

Audience: TV-14

Story: Set in the charming town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, the series follows the captivating lives of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, a mother/daughter pair who have a relationship most people only dream of.

Plot: grandparent grandchild relationship, small town, coffee, private school, ambition, middle class, high school, love, ...

Cast

Ryan Gosling

Emma Stone

John Legend

Rosemarie DeWitt

La La Land (2016)

7.9 18.2K votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Country: United States of America

Duration: 129 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.

Style: melancholy

Plot: dancing, dance, jazz, musical, ambition, casting, coffee shop, jazz club, ...

Cast

Derek Jacobi

I, Claudius (1976) TV Show

7.8 138 votes

Genre: Drama, War

Country: United Kingdom

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 12

Audience: TV-14

Story: Acclaimed blackly comic historical drama series. Set amidst a web of power, corruption and lies, it chronicles the reigns of the Roman emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and finally Claudius.

Plot: rome, italy, based on novel or book, roman empire, emperor, manipulation, ambition, ancient rome, ...

Time: 1st century

Cast

Klaus Kinski

Claudia Cardinale

Josu00e9 Lewgoy

Miguel u00c1ngel Fuentes

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

7.6 889 votes

Genre: Adventure, Drama

Country: Germany, Peru

Duration: 157 min.

Audience: PG

Story: Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

Plot: plantation, ambition, amazon rainforest, steamboat, opera house, riverboat, quest, imperialism, ...

Time: 19th century

Place: peru, south america

Cast

Denzel Washington

Russell Crowe

Josh Brolin

Chiwetel Ejiofor

American Gangster (2007)

7.6 6.1K votes

Genre: Crime, Drama

Country: United States of America

Duration: 157 min.

Audience: R

Story: Loosely based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by Newark Detective Richie Roberts.

Style: provocative, suspenseful, intense

Plot: new york city, drug smuggling, society, gangster, drug trafficking, heroin, junkie, ghetto, ...

Time: 1960s

Place: vietnam

The Wrestler (2008)

7.5 4.1K votes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: United States of America, France

Duration: 109 min.

Audience: R

Story: Aging wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson is long past his prime but still ready and rarin' to go on the pro-wrestling circuit. After a particularly brutal beating, however, Randy hangs up his tights, pursues a serious relationship with a long-in-the-tooth stripper, and tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter. But he can't resist the lure of the ring and readies himself for a comeback.

Style: shocking, absurd

Plot: daughter, new jersey, supermarket, heart attack, redemption, ambition, barbed wire, stripper, ...

Cast

Gael Garcu00eda Bernal

Lola Kirke

Saffron Burrows

Bernadette Peters

Mozart in the Jungle (2014) TV Show

7.5 259 votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 4

Episodes: 40

Audience: TV-MA

Story: In the tradition of Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" and Gelsey Kirkland's "Dancing on my Grave" comes an insider’s look into the secret world of classical musicians.From her debut recital at Carnegie Recital Hall to the Broadway pits of "Les Miserables" and "Miss Saigon," Blair Tindall has played with some of the biggest names in classical music for twenty-five years. Now in "Mozart in the Jungle," Tindall exposes the scandalous rock and roll lifestyles of the musicians, conductors, and administrators who inhabit the insular world of classical music.

Plot: new york city, orchestra, ambition, classical music, mozart, symphony, orchestra conductor

Cast

Paul Muni

Ann Dvorak

Karen Morley

Osgood Perkins

Scarface (1932)

7.4 699 votes

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Country: United States of America

Duration: 93 min.

Audience: 15

Story: In 1920s Chicago, Italian immigrant and notorious thug, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte, aka Scarface, shoots his way to the top of the mobs while trying to protect his sister from the criminal life.

Plot: chicago, illinois, sibling relationship, based on novel or book, police, alcohol, gangster, gang war, ...

Time: prohibition era

Cast

Montgomery Clift

Elizabeth Taylor

Shelley Winters

Anne Revere

A Place in the Sun (1951)

7.3 421 votes

Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance

Country: United States of America

Duration: 122 min.

Audience: NR

Story: A young social climber wins the heart of a beautiful heiress but his former girlfriend's pregnancy stands in the way of his ambition.

Plot: based on novel or book, love at first sight, ambition, trial, black and white, attraction, heiress, rowboat, ...

Cast

Michael Keaton

Nick Offerman

John Carroll Lynch

Linda Cardellini

The Founder (2016)

7.1 5.4K votes

Genre: Drama, History

Country: Greece, United States of America

Duration: 115 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: The true story of how Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.

Plot: greed, ambition, biography, family business, based on true story, salesman, corporate greed, fast food, ...

Time: 1950s

The Disaster Artist (2017)

7.1 3.8K votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: United States of America

Duration: 104 min.

Audience: R

Story: An aspiring actor in Hollywood meets an enigmatic stranger by the name of Tommy Wiseau, the meeting leads the actor down a path nobody could have predicted; creating the worst movie ever made.

Plot: immigrant, jealousy, based on novel or book, ambition, biography, based on true story, behind the scenes, disaster, ...

Cast

Denzel Washington

Frances McDormand

Alex Hassell

Bertie Carvel

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

6.9 884 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: United States of America

Duration: 105 min.

Audience: R

Story: Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.

Plot: witch, husband wife relationship, ambition, treason, based on play or musical, black and white, rise to power, non-traditional casting

Place: scotland

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Top Movies About Ambition

Movies have a unique ability to portray the highs and lows of ambition. Here are some standout films that encapsulate the spirit of striving for success:

The Pursuit of Happyness - A true story of resilience and determination, this film follows Chris Gardner's journey from homelessness to success as a stockbroker.
Whiplash - This intense drama explores the relationship between a young drummer and his demanding music instructor, highlighting the sacrifices made in the name of ambition.
The Social Network - A gripping portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg's rise to fame, this film delves into the ambition behind the creation of Facebook.
Joy - Based on the life of Joy Mangano, this movie showcases the challenges and triumphs of a woman who invents a revolutionary mop and builds a business empire.

Must-Watch TV Shows That Inspire

Television also delivers powerful narratives surrounding ambition, showcasing characters who navigate their careers and personal lives. Here are some essential TV shows that highlight this theme:

Mad Men - Set in the 1960s, this series follows the ambitious advertising executive Don Draper as he climbs the corporate ladder.
Billions - This contemporary drama explores the ambitious world of finance, pitting a U.S. Attorney against a hedge fund manager in a high-stakes game of power.
Breaking Bad - The transformation of Walter White from a high school teacher to a drug kingpin exemplifies the darker side of ambition.
Shark Tank - This reality show features entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas to a panel of investors, demonstrating ambition in the entrepreneurial spirit.

Why We Connect with Ambitious Narratives

Ambition resonates with audiences because it mirrors our own desires and struggles. We are drawn to stories that reflect:

The pursuit of dreams
The price of success
Overcoming obstacles

Conclusion

Whether through film or television, stories of ambition inspire us to chase our dreams. These movies and shows not only entertain but also motivate us to push beyond our limits and strive for greatness.