With the Lifetime Network’s upcoming Lifetime Original Movie 12 men of Christmas staring Kristin Chenoweth, I began to think about other Lifetime movies I have seen in the past. In descending order, are my top 10 picks for the best ten Lifetime Network films.
10. Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life. (2005) This Lifetime film is so bad it’s good. It’s the reefer madness of sex addiction films. The film is based around a 16-year-old high school student played by Jeremy Sumpter, who develops a debilitating addiction to Internet porn. His addiction begins to affect his performance on the swim team, his relationship with his chaste girlfriend, and his family. Incredibly unrealistic and over-acted, the Lifetime movie is absolutely hilarious. Parts were he uses his mothers credit card to pay for porn (come on who pays for anything on the internet?) and where his lack of sleep due to staying up all night lead to him binge drinking red bulls and losing his swim team match/
9. Co-ed Call Girl. (1996) Possibly 90210’s Tori Spelling’s best acting to date. She plays a strait-laced pre-med college student that is lured into the world of high priced escorting. When she eventually tries to get out, her pimp tries to manipulate and blackmail her. Eventually leading to a scuffle, which ends in an attempted murder trial and a predictable ending. Watching Spelling’s transformation from conservative college girl to prostitute is the best part of this film.
8. Confessions of a go-go girl. (2008) Similar to Co-ed Call girl, in this Lifetime original film Chelsea Hobbs plays a college graduate that defies her parent’s wishes of her to go to law school and enrolls in acting school instead. When she loses her parents financial support, she begins stripping to pay her bills. Model Rachel Hunter has a cameo as a fellow stripper.
7. Perfect Body (1997). Amy Jo Johnson plays a gymnast in this older Lifetime film on the way to the Olympics. When he new coach tells her to drop a few pounds, she becomes obsessed with her weight and dieting. This eventually leads to Johnson making herself vomit and restricting her diet to the point that it affects her health.
6. Sex, Lies, and Obsession (2001). Real life husband and wife Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin play husband and wife in this Lifetime film based on sex addiction. Husband Hamlin is a successful surgeon leading a double life. He picks up prostitutes, has a second home filled with porn where he meets other women to have sex. From the outside they have a seemingly perfect life with two children, until Rinna finds out her husband is cheating on her.
5. She woke up pregnant (1996). Based on a true story (as many Lifetime films are), about a woman who is raped by her oral surgeon, played by Joe Penny, while she is under sedation. Her husband has had a vasectomy and accuses her of cheating, until she realizes her dentist must have raped her. Lynda Carter, other wise known as super woman has a small role in the film.
4. Homeless to Harvard (2003). Based on a true story of a young woman named Liz Murray that was raised by two drug addicted parents and won a scholarship to Harvard. Murray, played by Thora Birch, becomes homeless at the age of 15 when her mother dies from AIDS her father is ill from HIV also. She is incredibly intelligent and ends up finishing 4 years of high school in two years and wins a scholarship from the New York Times after writing an essay on overcoming obstacles. The Lifetime Original movie is co-produced by the real life Liz Murray, who also has a small cameo in the film.
3. Hunger Point (2003). Based on a novel of the same name, this plot follow two sisters and their mother as the family struggles with the eating disorder of one sister, played by Susan May Pratt. The other sister, played by Christian Hendricks struggles to deal with her sister’s disease and subsequent death.
2. Dawn Ana (2005). A Lifetime movie about a single mother played by Debra Winger, of four children overcoming obstacles and was nominated for a prime time Emmy. First, the Winger finds out she has a brain tumor and undergoes a risky operation and subsequent rehab to teach herself how to walk and eat again. After surviving this illness, her daughter is then one of the victim’s in the Columbine High School massacre. Dawn Anna turns her youngest child’s death into a plight for gun control.
1. We were the Mulvaney’s. (2002). Based on a novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, it is a story about a family in a small rural town in upstate New York. Blythe Danner plays that Matriarch of the family, and the main character is the daughter of the film, who is raped during prom. The film follows how the rape tears the family apart, and ultimately ruins the lives of each member. Danner deals with the rape by simply refusing to discuss it, while her father starts drinking to deal with his feelings and eventually leaves the family. While the rape profoundly affects the life of their daughter, it shows how this one tragedy tore the Mulvaney’s apart because of their reaction to it.
