2424 Best Drama Movies to Watch (Page 69)

Coming-of-age films are usually optimistic, but sometimes, growing up isn’t as rosy as portrayed to be, as kids start to learn the failings of the adults that should know better and the tension that lies between sexes. Typhoon Club is like an anti-Breakfast Club, with the kids stuck in school overnight, not just one morning, due to a natural typhoon instead of randomly assigned detentions, and with the kids returning home traumatized instead of triumphant. Director Shinji Sōmai crafts a raw, turbulent experience, alternating between before, during, and after their stay that steadily heightens the uneasy, sometimes dangerous, experiences where these teenagers directly confront the disappointment that is adulthood. It’s a challenging film to watch, but Typhoon Club’s early exploration of teen ennui made it to be considered one of the best Japanese films ever made.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Kaori Kobayashi, Makoto Satō, Minori Terada, Saburo Date, Tomiko Ishii, Tomokazu Miura, Toshinori Omi, Youki Kudoh, Yuichi Mikami, Yuka Ônishi, Yuriko Fuchizaki

Director: Shinji Sōmai

This movie originally caught my eye for all the attention it got at the Cannes festival, but I assure you, all of the hype is more than warranted. Two Days, One Night takes you on an emotional journey with Sandra, recovering from depression and ready to get back to work, when she discovers that her co-workers, having to choose between receiving a bonus and Sandra keeping her job, hold her fate in their hands. And thus, barely convinced herself and with her husband as her only support, she sets out on an unlikely mission to convince the people to vote against the bonus so that she still has a salary. This movie will strike a chord for anyone who has encountered depression or even simply tried to understand the abstract concept that it is. Marion Cotillard flawlessly portrays through Sandra the desperate struggle of having to put up a fight despite the utter hopelessness that she finds herself drowning in. At strife with herself, watching her try even though every cell in her body has given up, is gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring at the same time. Before long Sandra's fight on the lay-off and on her own hopelessness seem to blur together. Whether she wins, is what keeps you hooked to the very end.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Alain Eloy, Baptiste Sornin, Batiste Sornin, Ben Hamidou, Catherine Salée, Christelle Cornil, Christelle Delbrouck, Fabrizio Rongione, Laurent Caron, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Marinne, Myriem Akeddiou, Myriem Akheddiou, Olivier Gourmet, Philippe Jeusette, Pili Groyne, Simon Caudry, Tom Adjibi, Yohan Zimmer

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Rating: PG-13

Two elderly gay men, Pak and Hoi, start a secret relationship during their twilight years. The catch: Pak is married and both are, well, old. Beneath their shared moments of tenderness, there is an undercurrent that the romance is ultimately futile, their remaining years too short to start life anew. Yet at the same time, director Ray Yeung uses the protagonists’ old age as justification for their love affair. Having dedicated their entire lives to their families and loved ones, romance is presented as a rewarding experience indicative of queer freedom, no matter how ill-fated or short-lived it might be.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Ben Yuen, Ben Yuen Foo-Wa, Ben Yuen Foo-Wah, Kong To, Lam Yiu-Sing, Lo Chun Yip, Patra Au Ga-Man, Tai Bo, Yuk-Guen Tsang

Director: Ray Yeung

This HBO mockumentary is part-pastiche of the mythologising sports documentary, part-zany comic creation of its own. Tour de Pharmacy tells the incredible untrue story of the 1982 Tour de France, the most chaotic iteration of the race that never happened. Of the original 170 cyclists, all but five were disqualified for bribing the deep-in-debt president of cycling’s governing body (Kevin Bacon), leaving only Italian-a sensation-a JuJu Peppi (Orlando Bloom); secret female racer Adrian Baton (Julia Ormond and Freddie Highmore); frustrated nephew of Jackie Robinson, Slim (Daveed Diggs); a roided-out Austrian (John Cena); and Marty Hass (Andy Samberg), a Nigerian cyclist despised by his country.

Tragedy, scandal, and surprising romance unfold across the documentary’s chronicling of the race’s 21 stages, with plenty of digressions along the way — from a riotous interview with the head of the sport’s anti-doping agency (played by Nathan Fielder) to an animated explanation of red and white cells that devolves into a surreally bloody civil war. The humor zooms between the high-brow (French New Wave references delivered by JJ Abrams) and the R-rated from scene to scene, making this breezy mockumentary a wild ride of its own.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, TV Movie

Actor: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Andy Samberg, Chris Romano, Chris Webber, Danny Glover, Daveed Diggs, Dolph Lundgren, Edgar Wright, Eric Nenninger, Eugenia Kuzmina, Freddie Highmore, J.J. Abrams, James Marsden, Jeff Goldblum, Joe Buck, John Cena, Jon Hamm, Julia Ormond, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Clash, Lance Armstrong, Maya Rudolph, Mike Tyson, Myles Brewer, Nathan Fielder, Orlando Bloom, Phylicia Rashād, Rebecca Dayan, Russ Walko, Seth Morris, Will Forte

Director: Jake Szymanski

A documentary about two "climbing" friends who attempt to summit Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. I say climbing friends because they are both somewhat egotistical, yuppie risk takers and seem to be the type who are only friends when their interests align. Nevertheless, they are truly ambitious, driven adventurers. A storm hits and one of the climbers gets injured. They both know that this is a death sentence, and events go on from there. The story is epic and nearly unbelievable, but for the fact that it actually happened. I am not a climber, but the plot and story will speak to any adventurer who must accept inherent risks, including death, in their outdoor endeavors.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Documentary, Drama

Actor: Brendan Mackey, Joe Simpson, Nicholas Aaron, Ollie Ryall, Richard Hawking, Simon Yates

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Rating: R

This slow Italian drama tells the true story of Mafia boss Tommaso Buscetta, who became the highest-profile Mafia informant at the time of his arrest in the 1980s.

Tommaso, while supervising a criminal network in Sicily, moved to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to attempt a more legal and quieter life. His role catches up with him and he is quickly arrested.

As a biopic, it rarely depicts violence or glorifies organized crime. Instead, it attempts to document the life of a Mafia boss more realistically: a life of always looking over one's shoulder and of constant loss. Eventually, the movie focuses on what it would take for a man like Tommaso to flip, and what that would cost him.

The Mafia topic might feel overdone, but watching this, it's startling to realize how few thorough character studies have come out in film.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Alessio Praticò, André Lamoglia, Annamaria Spina, Antonio Orlando, Aurora Peres, Bebo Storti, Bruno Cariello, Carlo Ferreri, Cinzia Susino, Claudio Collovà, Dino Santoro, Domenico Gennaro, Edoardo Strano, Elia Schilton, Fabrizio Ferracane, Fabrizio Romano, Fausto Russo Alesi, Francesco Emanuele Chinnici, Gabriele Arena, Giovanni Calcagno, Giovanni Vettorazzo, Goffredo Maria Bruno, Jonas Bloch, Larry Kapust, Leo Wainer, Luciano Quirino, Ludovico Caldarera, Luigi Lo Cascio, Marco Gambino, Maria Amato, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Michelangelo Cicirello, Miriam Previati, Nicola Calí​, Nicola Calì, Nicola Siri, Nunzia Lo Presti, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Pierfrancesco Favino, Pietro Pace, Raffaella D'Avella, Raffaella Lebboroni, Rainer Cadete, Sergio Pierattini, Simona Distefano, Tommaso Buscetta, Vincenzo Ferrera, Vincenzo Pirrotta

Director: Marco Bellocchio

Rating: R

Most people aspire to have families, deciding to form their own by marrying, bearing children, and if fertility makes that impossible, adopting one. The Official Story is centered on upper middle class Alicia, who’s already made the idyllic family life, with the last piece completed with her adoption of Gaby, but there are secrets held from her, or rather, there are realities that she chose not to listen to because of the painful implications. Writer-director Luis Puenzo juxtaposes the family secret to the violent ones the Argentine junta government kept from its citizens. It's not a subtle comparison– Puenzo makes it obvious– but it's an effective one, as Alicia has to reckon with the fact that she lies in bed with a stranger, as Argentina has to reckon with the remaining junta members and enablers.

Genre: Drama, History

Actor: Analia Castro, Andrea Tenuta, Aníbal Morixe, Augusto Larreta, Carlos Weber, Chela Ruíz, Chela Ruiz, Chunchuna Villafañe, Chunchuna Villafane, Fabián Rendo, Guillermo Battaglia, Héctor Alterio, Héctor Alterio, Horacio Erman, Hugo Arana, Jorge Chernov, Jorge Petraglia, Lidia Catalano, María Luisa Robledo, Marcos Woinsky, Maria Luisa Robledo, Norma Aleandro, Oscar Ferrigno Jr., Pablo Rago, Patricio Contreras, Paula Canals, Tony Middleton

Director: Luis Puenzo

Rating: Not Rated, NR

Activism is never easy, especially when there is scant information available and when public opinion is set against you. The Normal Heart captures the struggle for gay men during the AIDS crisis, and director Ryan Murphy infuses Larry Kramer’s original play with the melodramatic tendencies Murphy has, but for a cause such as this, an epidemic that might have calmed down in the public imagination but still active today, Murphy’s propensity for the trauma and the pain and Kramer’s script honors their activism, especially at its most emotionally heavy moments. The Normal Heart isn’t perfect, it’s even downright depressing, but it strikes true with the anger and sorrow the gay community needed to hold for decades.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Adam B. Shapiro, Alfred Molina, Armand Schultz, BD Wong, Catherine Chadwick, Chris Sullivan, Corey Brill, Corey Stoll, Danielle Ferland, Denis O'Hare, Eden Marryshow, Finn Wittrock, Francois Battiste, Frank De Julio, Jim Parsons, Joe Lanza, Joe Mantello, John Mainieri, Jonathan Groff, Julia Roberts, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Patrick Woodall, Rebecca Watson, Remy Auberjonois, Richard Prioleau, Scott Johnsen, Stephen Spinella, Taylor Kitsch, William DeMeritt

Director: Ryan Murphy