In life and cinema, drama is everywhere. You’ll find it in thrillers, animations, romances, you name it. For entertainment that explores the human experience with sensitivity and sincerity, here’s a mixed bag of the best dramas to stream now.
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller
Actor: Aaron Abrams, Akiel Julien, Albert Lapi, Alex Mallari Jr., Altair Vincent, Darrin Maharaj, Hazel Gorin, J.D. Nicholsen, Jane Moffat, Jean Yoon, Jessica Allen, Kari Matchett, Mikayla SwamiNathan, Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Natalie Liconti, Nneka Elliott, Noorin Gulamgaus, Robbie Amell, Sammy Azero, Sarena Parmar, Sirena Gulamgaus, Starr Domingue, Stephen Amell, Yatharth Bhatt
Director: Jeff Chan
Despite an engaging opening that promises to deepen the world already established in 2018's Bird Box, this new installment slips back into the usual routine before long. That is: cheap thrills and an overall lack of scares, not necessarily because of the fact that the creatures terrorizing this world are invisible, but because the film doesn't take advantage of the fear and paranoia that builds among the human characters. A stronger focus on religious belief (or simply blind fanaticism) should lead to more interesting character dynamics, but there isn't a single person here who's defined by anything beyond a few base traits. So despite the efforts of a game cast (including Babylon's Diego Calva and especially Barbarian's Georgina Campbell), the film just can't overcome how boring it is to watch blindfolded people reacting to nothing.
Genre: Drama, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
Actor: Alejandra Howard, Celia Freijeiro, Diego Calva, Georgina Campbell, Gonzalo de Castro, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Lola Dueñas, Manel Llunell, Mario Casas, Michelle Jenner, Milo Taboada, Naila Schuberth, Patrick Criado
Director: Àlex Pastor, David Pastor
There's a way to get tragedy right, in a way that keeps the drama engaging even as bad things continue to happen. The Damned Don't Cry gets its approach half-right, with the lead performances by Aïcha Tebbae and Abdellah El Hajjouji remaining sturdy all throughout, and never slipping into easy histrionics. But as the cycle of misfortune continues plaguing their characters, the filmmaking itself doesn't give us anything more to latch onto, with little progression in their arcs and a frustrating lack of insight into the very promising central relationship. There's no mistaking the film's good intentions, but the message arrives in an unfortunately clunky manner.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Abdellah El Hajjouji, Aïcha Tebbae, Antoine Reinartz, Jonathan Genet
Director: Fyzal Boulifa
With the premise, Ololade seems like it would be a mysterious crime thriller, where two friends try to keep the wealth they suddenly obtained. It doesn’t really go that way, however, as the money leads into shenanigans involving multiple girlfriends, making it more a drama about infidelity than a drama about money laundering. The series tries to make fun of it, and there are moments when it’s funny to see them hide their mistresses, but these silly moments feel terrible considering that the show starts with one girlfriend’s death. There’s something here about the ridiculousness of juggling multiple women, but when this leads to a death that’s just brushed away, Ololade just seems thoughtlessly cruel.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Adebowale Adedayo, Femi Adebayo, Frank Donga, Mercy Aigbe, Mide Funmi Martins
Director: Adeniyi Joseph Omobulejo
This B-movie sci-fi-action-thriller from co-writer-director Robert Rodriguez starts out like a hammy pastiche of (the already overdone) Taken, but its interminable succession of galaxy-brain twists reveals other obvious influences — among them Inception, Memento, and Shutter Island. Fine ingredients, but the recipe is all wrong, as a gravelly-voiced, seemingly barely awake Ben Affleck sleepwalks his way through the cringy dialogue. Alongside William Fichtner in shady supervillain mode, Affleck is joined in that endeavor by Alice Braga as the psychic who is (seemingly) helping his Detective Rourke track down his (again, seemingly!) kidnapped daughter, though what Braga mostly does is hold the audience’s hand and explain the plot’s increasingly convoluted sci-fi elements to us. At one point, she tells Rourke that “pain keeps the mind awake” — and, while the excruciating script doesn’t seem to have that effect on Affleck (judging from his lethargic performance), it’s hard not to find yourself a little enlivened by Hypnotic’s sheer absurdity.
Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller
Actor: Alice Braga, Ben Affleck, Bobby Hernandez, Bonnie Discepolo, Carrick O'Quinn, Corina Calderon, Dayo Okeniyi, Derek Russo, Gabriel 'G-Rod' Rodriguez, Hala Finley, J. D. Pardo, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeff Fahey, Justin Hall, Kelly Frye, Kelly Phelan, Lawrence Varnado, Nikki Dixon, Ryan Ryusaki, Sonia Izzolena, Steve Brudniak, William Fichtner, Zane Holtz
Director: Robert Rodriguez
From Turkish comedian Cem Yilmaz, Do Not Disturb feels like it was meant to be a wholesome slice-of-life comedy-drama where a hotel manager has meaningful interactions with his fellow co-workers and his guests at night. It’s not quite like the Grand Budapest Hotel, though the film shares its fondness of bright, vivid colors and old-style aesthetics. As the film deals with a character hoping for a new start post-pandemic, there is something here about loneliness and coping mechanisms, as Ayzek relies on an Instagram influencer for all his life wisdom. However, the film makes it hard to make it care about its characters, as everyone but the main character seem one dimensional. When the film makes a surprising shift two-thirds of the way through, it feels like it came by too late.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Ahsen Eroğlu, Bülent Şakrak, Can Yılmaz, Celal Kadri Kınoğlu, Cem Yılmaz, Diren Polatoğulları, Mustafa Kirantepe, Nilperi Şahinkaya, Özge Özberk, Seda Akman, Tilbe Saran, Zafer Algöz
Director: Cem Yılmaz
Genre: Drama
Actor: He Ruixian, Jackie Li, Liu Min, Pan Binlong, Wang Xingyue
Remaking his own 2021 Tamil film, director Samuthirakani presents BRO, a Telugu adaptation that doesn’t compare to its original. The premise itself had proven potential, but instead of understanding Mark’s struggle as a breadwinner who took care of his family after the death of their father, the film offers spectacle in response. The larger-than-life, supernatural scenes could have worked, had the film dedicated them for character development (and a bit more time on the VFX). With the backing of the global giant Netflix, and the critical acclaim towards the original film, it’s a wonder how a film like BRO could end up this way.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Actor: Ketika Sharma, Pawan Kalyan, Priya Prakash Varrier, Sai Dharam Tej, Subbaraju
Director: Samuthirakani
You can tell that Blaze director Del Kathryn Barton is an award-winning visual artist first and foremost. The images that she puts together in this film are frequently stunning—making use of the camera in fascinating, freeing ways, and with lots of practical and computer-generated/animated effects that paint her young protagonist Blaze's world in glitter and feathers and lush colors. The imaginary dragon, which acts as a shorthand to symbolize Blaze's complex psychological response to her trauma, is a wonderfully tactile life-size puppet that lead actress Julia Savage responds to in an entirely convincing way.
But you can also tell that this is Barton's debut feature. Ultimately her visuals don't do enough to shake off or give meaning to the graphic scene of rape and murder that occurs at the beginning of the film. And the way she structures the movie threatens to make it feel like a series of music videos or video art pieces. Despite its originality and the level of commitment displayed by both Savage and Simon Baker, Blaze has difficulty communicating a coherent message about trauma—the film strung together by heavy-handed scenes that spell out various ideas and lead to the most obvious conclusions.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Fantasy
Actor: Bernie Van Tiel, Heather Mitchell, John Waters, Josh Lawson, Julia Savage, Kristy Wordsworth, Morgan Davies, Neal Horton, Rebecca Massey, Remy Hii, Simon Baker, Stephen James King, Will McDonald, Yael Stone
Director: Del Kathryn Barton
Built entirely around the star power of its lead performers, A Very Good Girl does, indeed, provide ample opportunities for both Kathryn Bernardo and Dolly de Leon to chew the scenery with wild abandon. But even their most campily delivered one-liners are only entertaining in the moment, as the film twists itself into increasingly complicated (and still oddly sanitized) knots to keep its thrills going. It ends with an incredibly muddled view of the kinds of violence perpetrated by the wealthy and the less fortunate, as if the studio funding the movie prevented it from becoming the bolder, edgier story it seems to want to be.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller
Actor: Althea Ruedas, Ana Abad-Santos, Angel Aquino, Chie Filomeno, Dolly de Leon, Donna Cariaga, Gabby Padilla, Gillian Vicencio, Iwa Moto, Jake Ejercito, Joji Vitug, Kaori Oinuma, Kathryn Bernardo
Director: Petersen Vargas
This is a textbook example of a film with all the right ingredients and the right attitude, but ultimately no game plan for what to do with its material. The first half of Love in Taipei does a good job of setting an inviting tone: a confident cast, attractive locations and production design, and dynamic direction that helps make this expensive summer school program feel more like an adventure. But once the pieces are in place and certain romantic connections are established, the film almost instantly loses its charisma and any sense of a plot. Conflict is introduced then painted over within the span of minutes, and the characters undergoing completely unearned growth without doing much of anything. Even the film's backdrop of the differences between children of the diaspora and those who remain rooted in traditional Taiwanese culture is reduced to hollow window dressing.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Actor: Ashley Liao, Chelsea Zhang, Cindy Cheung, Nico Hiraga, Ross Butler
Director: Arvin Chen
A vampire story is a tale as old as time (I couldn't resist), and adding a long-lost love to the narrative is the cherry on top of a potentially swoon-worthy supernatural romance. But despite the addition of elements like centuries-long sleep, talking cats, and a school nurse whose bad luck welcomes shenanigans every other second, there is only so much to expect with this basic premise, and the quest to become human is not a solid anchor to keep watching. Although if you're after an effortless watch, then HeartBeat's handsome lead, quirky sidekicks, and headstrong leading lady check all the boxes for an easy watch to fall into.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Baek Hyun-joo, Baek Seo Hoo, Go Gyu-pil, Jung Young-ki, Ok Taec-yeon, Park Chul-min, Park Kang-hyun, Won Ji-an, Yoon Byung-hee, Yoon So-hee
Director: Lee Hyun-seok, Lee Min-soo
Though it features strong talent in front of the camera from Lena Headey and Stephan James, Beacon 23 ultimately doesn't do enough to draw us into what should be a tale of tense paranoia. It throws us directly into the story without nearly a clear enough idea of what's at stake—which may be part of the genre's appeal to some, but even our protagonists possess little to latch on to at the beginning. Even if the constant ramping up of the situation, with new secrets and betrayals revealed at every turn, is entertaining on a base level, the series just can't overcome the blandness of the overall story and of the dull, metallic greys of its production design.
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Thriller
Actor: Lena Headey, Stephan James
Genre: Action & Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Actor: Alfonso Dosal, Andres Baida, Bruno Bichir, Ester Exposito, Juan Pablo Medina, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Mabel Cadena, Nicolás Furtado
It isn't even just because it's a sequel, but every bit of Your Christmas or Mine 2 seems like it was sourced from other films with more personality, resulting in a stew of holiday tropes driven entirely by contrivances and conflicts that should be more easily resolved. And yet there's something that keeps the film far more tolerable than insufferable, as both Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk compensate for the artificiality of the drama with authentic emotion. There are funny moments throughout and a decent supporting cast (who are given precious little to do), but all this adds up to a film that still feels like it was meant to be played in the background.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Actor: Alex Jennings, Angela Griffin, Anna Behne, Asa Butterfield, Christopher Sherwood, Cora Kirk, Daniel Mays, David Bradley, Jane Krakowski, Karl Markovics, Natalie Gumede, Ram John Holder, Rhea Norwood, Simon Hatzl
Director: Jim O'Hanlon