2570 Best Drama Movies to Watch (Page 162)

Staff & contributors

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.

Sukhee depicts the struggles specific to adult women – the way women are encouraged to sacrifice their identity for the people that they love and to meet certain expectations that feel impossible or contradictory. This isn’t a common topic in film, but it has been portrayed before, with the likes of English Vinglish and Eat, Pray, Love. Sukhee does some things differently, with a fun girl’s out Delhi trip reminiscing over her past and reconnecting with her former self. However, the film loses its way in the second half. With plot elements that feel haphazardly thrown in, including a randomly placed horse race, the film never fully resolves the main issue at the core of the film – the lack of respect towards the housewife role, as well as the way the family needs better stress management skills.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Amit Sadh, Chaitannya Choudhry, Dilnaz Irani, Kiran Kumar, Kusha Kapila, Maahi Jain, Shilpa Shetty Kundra, Vinod Nagpal

Director: Sonal Joshi

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Centered on a unique marriage, Satyaprem Ki Katha could have reinvented the romance genre with its depiction of women’s trauma. The film does care about the issue, as it sides with the victim in this regard, and there’s a certain sweetness in the relationship being portrayed. Kiara Advani’s performance feels believable and she clearly makes the best of her existing scenes. However, the film is too afraid to be critical of the men in this film, especially as it’s too concerned with Sattu as a savior. On top of this, it relies too much on the standard Indian song-and-dance, which, while spectacular, takes away too much time from the issue at hand. Because of this, Satyaprem Ki Katha feels like a missed opportunity.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Anuradha Patel, Arjun Aneja, Gajraj Rao, Kartik Aaryan, Kiara Advani, Nirmiti Sawant, Rajpal Yadav, Shikha Talsania, Siddharth Randeria, Supriya Pathak

Director: Sameer Vidwans

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In most instances, Rez Ball isn’t all that different from traditional sports dramas. It features a down-on-their-luck high school basketball team--the Chuska Warriros-- that gets better through sheer perseverance and teamwork. But as the title suggests, the Warriors play a slightly different kind of game. Rez Ball, according to the film, is faster and more points-focused. And the way the film lets the players (and us, the audience) learn about it by connecting the team with Navajo culture and practices is ingenious. As an intimate showcase of rez life, the film shines. But as a drama, it falters. The acting is rusty and uneven (though shoutout to Devin Sampson-Craig and first-timer Kauchani Bratt for getting it right), and the direction feels similarly wooden. The film is a promising entry, it just needs more time and polishing to be great.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Amber Midthunder, Cody Lightning, Dallas Goldtooth, Jessica Matten, Julia Jones, Kauchani Bratt, Kiowa Gordon, Ryan Begay

Director: Sydney Freeland

Rating: PG-13

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You don’t come into a Tyler Perry movie expecting to be dazzled, but you do expect to be entertained. Mea Culpa evokes neither of those feelings, at least not in the first half of the film. Between the predictable plot and Rhodes’ bewilderingly flat performance, it’s a mighty challenge to stay awake. Rhodes is, of course, the lead in the award-winning film Moonlight, where he gave a soulful and lived-in performance. So it doesn’t make sense why, in Mea Culpa, despite playing a perennially horny man, he’s as exciting to watch as paint dry. We’re supposed to believe that his charisma (or lack thereof) seduces Rowland’s character, but there’s no chemistry to be found. For her part, Rowland is a delight to watch. The many turns she experiences fit her range, and she is effectively the heart of the film. Mea Culpa, to be fair, revs up and gets thrilling by the second half, when the chips start to fall and the twists unfold. But it’s too little too late, and they barely shock you at that point, that is if you’re still awake.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Angela Robinson, Connor Weil, Cory Hardin, Kelly Rowland, Kerry O'Malley, Nick Sagar, RonReaco Lee, Sean Sagar, Shannon Thornton, Trevante Rhodes

Director: Tyler Perry

Rating: R

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Beat for beat, word for word, Love is in the Air moves just like any other romantic comedy. Within that genre, it slots easily into the category of romcoms that follow a city guy who falls in love with a country girl, eventually learning and preferring the ways of small-town living. But Love in Air is even more improbable than usual because of how eerily perfect the two leads are. Goodrem, in particular, is always manicured to perfection, which makes her role as a down-to-earth no-nonsense go-getter very hard to believe. Still, the movie isn’t entirely unwatchable. There are pockets of humor to be found, and the stunning visuals almost make it worth the watch. Almost.  

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Craig Walker, Daniela Pizzirani, Delta Goodrem, Hugh Parker, Joshua Sasse, Mia Grunwald, Roy Billing, Simon McLachlan, Steph Tisdell

Director: Adrian Powers

Rating: PG-13

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If it takes your girlfriend dying before you’re able to open up to her, you’re probably not acting like a good significant other, especially when she moved all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to live with you. It’s hard to root for If Only’s leading man with such a rough start, but there’s a certain charm to the story that makes the movie watchable, the sweet reminder to cherish the people in your life while they’re still here to be cherished. While the schedule of Ian’s repeated day is kinda ridiculous, the lines are a bit cheesy, and the plot is a bit too predictable for a premise that can be made much more fantastic, If Only won’t disappoint viewers just looking for a cute romance.

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Actor: Anthony Milner, Diana Hardcastle, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kevin Moore, Lucy Davenport, Neville Phillips, Oscar James, Paul Nicholls, Pippa Haywood, Roy Sampson, Stewart Wright, Terence Harvey, Tom Wilkinson

Director: Gil Junger

Rating: PG-13

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Horror doesn’t have the best track record with homosexuality, as anything considered as the other are often alluded to in making its monsters, but in Ganymede, the script is flipped– Lee’s love for Kyle is portrayed in the most peaceful and calming of ways, while the harshly spat homophobic beliefs Lee’s dad beats into his family manifests into grotesque demons. It’s a novel idea, one that smartly suggests that forcing yourself in the closet forms a hell of one’s own making, but the way the film is executed gives Ganymede an uneven tone, especially since co-directors Colby Holt and Sam Probst don’t seem to know what to do with the film’s horror elements.

Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller

Actor: Brady Gentry, David Koechner, Joe Chrest, Jordan Doww, Marissa Reyes, Melanie Booth, Pablo Castelblanco, Pete Zias, Rachel Walters, Robyn Lively, Sibyl Gregory Wulf, Tatiana Harman

Director: Colby Holt, Sam Probst

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Being made for free, fanfiction is free to play with controversial, less print-friendly concepts like gender-bending your favorite character. This freedom might go into strange territory, but most often than not, writers use fanfiction for escapism or for catharsis of their day-to-day lives. While the film doesn’t delve into fanfiction’s creative process, Polish drama Fanfic does recognize how the genre’s experimentation allows its writers to safely and freely explore different styles of expression, the same way teenage years hopefully do for its viewers. And as Tosiek goes through the trappings of coming-of-age self-discovery, it’s lovely and comforting and cathartic like the stories he writes.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Adam Cywka, Agnieszka Rajda, Alin Szewczyk, Anna Krotoska, Anna Wojnarowska, Dobromir Dymecki, Ewelina Starejki, Helena Sujecka, Ignacy Liss, Jakub Wróblewski, Jan Cięciara, Kaya Kołodziejczyk, Krzysztof Oleksyn, Maja Szopa, Marcin Perchuć, Mateusz Górski, Natalia Łągiewczyk, Oskar Rybaczek, Radosław Krzyżowski, Stanisław Cywka, Sylwia Achu, Wiktoria Kruszczyńska

Director: Marta Karwowska

Rating: NC-17

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With the rise of fascism globally, and concerns about an upcoming world war, depictions of World War II have become popular, with the most notable being Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Einstein and the Bomb instead takes a look at the prominent scientist, whose theory of relativity made the atomic bomb possible, who had a personal stake in ensuring the Nazis were defeated, but who also had to reckon with the horrific consequences in pursuing the West’s promises of peace. It’s a needed perspective, and director Anthony Philipson pulls from Einstein’s very words, his own ideas about the society at the time eerily echoing the concerns about today’s society. However, there’s something off about the way these ideas are presented, as it feels like the film was less interested in Einstein as a man, and more interested in using him as a spokesperson, using his image to cry over today’s conflicts.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Actor: Adolf Hitler, Aidan McArdle, Albert Einstein, Andrew Havill, Gethin Alderman, Helena Westerman, James Musgrave, Jonathan Rhodes, Leo Ashizawa, Rachel Barry, Simon Markey, Toby Longworth

Director: Anthony Philipson

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