634 Best Drama Movies On Itunes Australia (Page 30)

Thunder Road is both a single-shot 13 minute short and a 91-minute feature-film expanding the story. Both are excellent and award-winning, but I really recommend the full experience!

Jim Cummings (above) is the director, writer, and main actor of this dark comedy. He plays a police officer having the worst day of his life as he tries to sing Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road at his mother’s funeral.

This sight is funny, and so is most of the story. But it’s also cringe-inducing, and because the main character is so sincere in his decline, will make you feel guilty about laughing so much. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Ammie Masterson, Bill Wise, Chelsea Edmundson, Chris Doubek, Frank Mosley, István Mihály, Jacqueline Doke, Jim Cummings, Jocelyn DeBoer, Jordan Ray Fox, Kendal Farr, Macon Blair, Marshall Allman, Nican Robinson, Tristan Riggs

Director: Jim Cummings

Rating: N/A

Even if it seems like nothing really "happens" for much of The Secret Garden, its characters paint quite the moving picture of neglected children and their indomitable capacity to find hope in the world. Director Agnieszka Holland tells this story with just the right amount of whimsy: at times it's spooky and magical, but everything is grounded in the charming performances of the film's young actors, who are allowed to be difficult, smart, and sorrowful whenever they need to be. It may be old-fashioned, but watching it in this new decade—when we're all trying to guard our kids from sickness and death—makes it feel all the more relevant.

Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy

Actor: Andrea Pickering, Andrew Knott, Arthur Spreckley, Colin Bruce, David Stoll, Eileen Page, Heydon Prowse, Irène Jacob, John Lynch, Kate Maberly, Laura Crossley, Maggie Smith, Peter Moreton, Walter Sparrow

Director: Agnieszka Holland

Rating: G

With more and more young people moving to the city for jobs, there’s a certain beauty in the countryside that is being missed out. The Road Home is a simple and straightforward love story, one that is mostly composed of Zhang Ziyi as a country girl stealing glances at the handsome city boy who’s come to teach in the village, but there’s a certain magic in the way director Zhang Yimou depicts the rural traditions of the village, the charming and distinct rhythms of life that continues to this day. While the film glosses over the reasons for Luo’s temporary departure, which some reviewers speculate is due to China’s then Anti-Rightist campaign, The Road Home beautifully depicts the way love can bloom despite these troubles, and how this love can shift the lives of an entire town.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Li Bin, Sun Honglei, Yulian Zhao, Zhang Ziyi, Zheng Hao

Director: Zhang Yimou

A married Palestinian deliveryman starts seeing a wealthy Israeli café owner in this gripping romance/thriller. Their seemingly low-stakes encounters in the back of a van take geopolitical dimensions when Saleem, the deliveryman is suddenly arrested. Based on a true story.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Hanan Hillo, Ishai Golan, Kamel El Basha, Kamel ElBasha, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Rebecca Esmeralda Telhami

Director: Muayad Alayan

Rating: 12

This buddies-on-the-road drama was the highest-grossing independent film of 2019, which tells you everything you need to know about it: it’s familiar, but it’s not overblown.

A fisherman (Shia LaBeouf) has to flee after vandalizing the property of a rival fishing group who bully him. On the way, he meets a man with Down syndrome, who, unexpectedly, is on a journey to become a pro wrestler.

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Actor: Ann Owens, Aurelian Smith Jr., Bruce Dern, Dakota Johnson, Deja Dee, John Hawkes, Jon Bernthal, Lee Spencer, Mick Foley, Rob Thomas, Shia LaBeouf, Susan McPhail, Thomas Haden Church, Tim Zajaros, Wayne Dehart, Yelawolf, Zachary Gottsagen, Zack Gottsagen

Director: Michael Schwartz, Tyler Nilson

Rating: PG-13

This uplifting Canadian sports drama is based on a true story set in the remote Nunavut town of Kugluktuk. The small community has the highest teen suicide rate in North America, as it suffers from intergenerational trauma, and the resulting alcohol and drug abuse. A new young history teacher who is sent by the government is shocked by the state of the school and the lives of the teenagers. He realizes that he can't engage the kids with history, and turns to his passion for Lacrosse to try to ignite change.

The teacher and director of the movie are both white, which, added to the story, raise red flags about white savior tropes. But thanks to First Nation producers who made sure the kids had time to develop their characters, The Grizzlies narrowly misses disaster. Instead, it gives a voice to communities that are rarely heard from. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Anna Lambe, Ben Schnetzer, Booboo Stewart, Brad Fraser, Eric Schweig, Fred Bailey, Jack Anawak, Madeline Ivalu, Natar Ungalaaq, Seth Burke, Tantoo Cardinal, Will Sasso

Director: Miranda de Pencier

Rating: R

Education isn’t always a guarantee, especially in less privileged areas that are underfunded, overlooked, and underprioritized, in the belief that these kids wouldn’t amount to much in the end. That being said, sometimes, what changes that fate is having a teacher that believed in his students and encouraged them to learn more than what they were expected. Stand and Deliver is a dramatization of the real life Jaime Escalante, who transformed a math program in an east LA high school to the point where his entire class ace California’s calculus test. The film definitely takes some dramatic liberties, but it does capture a sense of his quiet determination, the personality that pushed him to believe in and connect with students differently. While Escalante’s program eventually ended due to admin changes and staff in-fighting, Stand and Deliver is a reminder of the importance of nurturing ganas, or desire, in the classroom.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Andy Garcia, Betty Carvalho, Bodie Olmos, Carmen Argenziano, Edward James Olmos, Estelle Harris, Ingrid Oliu, Irene Olga López, Karla Montana, Lou Diamond Phillips, Manuel Benitez, Mark Phelan, Rosanna DeSoto, Vanessa Marquez, Virginia Paris

Director: Ramón Menéndez

Rating: PG

This gripping legal drama is based on a case we still don’t know the truth of — which might make it seem like a pointless exercise, were it not for the fact that it’s infectiously fascinated by greater questions than whether wealthy socialite Claus von Bülow (Jeremy Irons) really did attempt to kill wife Sunny (Glenn Close), who was left comatose by the mysterious event. After being convicted, Claus recruited for his appeal then-hotshot lawyer Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver), now better known for personal allegations and his defense of men even more nefarious than Claus. Reversal follows the tricky legal argument-crafting process, embedding us with Dershowitz’s elite team as they meticulously comb through the prosecution’s theory to find the hairline crack they need to break the case open.

But why go to all this effort to exonerate an unlikeable and frustratingly enigmatic man like Claus, whom Dershowitz apparently doesn’t even believe himself? While we’re morbidly fascinated by unknowable cases like this, it’s the passion of the defense that’s really puzzling — something Reversal shrewdly gets as it wrestles with the ethical arguments for and against Dershowitz’s involvement, making for a pre-courtroom drama whose power extends beyond that of the particular case it documents.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Alan Pottinger, Annabella Sciorra, Bill Camp, Brian Delate, Bruno Eyron, Christine Baranski, Christine Dunford, Constance Shulman, Edwin McDonough, Ericka Klein, Felicity Huffman, Fisher Stevens, Frank Stellato, Frederick Neumann, Glenn Close, Gordon Joseph Weiss, Jack Gilpin, Jad Mager, JD Cullum, Jeremy Irons, Jessika Cardinahl, Johann Carlo, Julie Hagerty, Keith Reddin, Larry Sherman, Leo Leyden, LisaGay Hamilton, Malachy McCourt, Mitchell Whitfield, Redman Maxfield, Ron Silver, Stephen Mailer, Tom Wright, Uta Hagen

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Jessica Chastain plays a driven Washington lobbyist called Elizabeth Sloane in this high-speed political thriller. After being pitched to work for the gun lobby, she decides to work for the opposition: an NGO trying to pass a background check bill. It's a long movie, and even if everything happens fast, it still lags. 

The events do wrap up by the end to explain the complex plot. Not to mention, Chastain's performance something to behold and is reason enough to watch. Her character's hidden motive and questionable methods make her an anti-hero, but Chastain always keeps a lure of hope that her character will redeem herself. That delicate balance might be the most thrilling aspect of Miss Sloan.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Aaron Hale, Al Mukaddam, Alexandra Castillo, Alison Pill, Anand Rajaram, Andrew Moodie, Angela Vint, Austin Strugnell, Christine Baranski, Chuck Shamata, Courtenay J. Stevens, Craig Eldridge, David Wilson Barnes, Doug Murray, Douglas Smith, Dylan Baker, Ennis Esmer, Grace Lynn Kung, Greta Onieogou, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Gurdeep Ahluwalia, Helen Johns, Jack Murray, Jake Lacy, Jessica Chastain, Joe Pingue, John Lithgow, Kevin Jubinville, Kyle Mac, Lucy Owen, Mark Strong, Meghann Fahy, Michael Cram, Michael Stuhlbarg, Murray Furrow, Noah Robbins, Ola Sturik, Raoul Bhaneja, Sam Waterston, Sergio Di Zio, Zach Smadu

Director: John Madden

Rating: R