583 Best Dramatic Movies to Watch (Page 21)

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Staff & contributors

If your inner drama queen is craving some stimulation and you’re looking for a movie that guarantees all the feels, we’ve got you covered. Here are the best emotionally and narratively dramatic movies and shoes to stream now.

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, 1995

Best known for landmark cyberpunk anime Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo crafted strange and terrifying visions of a world that has not yet come, imagining technology that surpassed that of today, but in much pessimistic light compared to that of the genre. Three of his manga short stories are depicted in Memories, with Otomo partnering with Kōji Morimoto and Tensai Okamura to direct each segment, and with Satoshi Kon in writing, just before Kon’s own iconic surrealist films. Kon-written Magnetic Rose has been universally acknowledged as the best of them, being much more emotionally poignant, but the other two does have its charms, as Stink Bomb takes a relatively silly premise to its fairly logical, but scary conclusion, and Cannon Fodder takes the beauty of Otomo’s art into such a hollow and ugly world. All three deliver terrifying omens of death through technology used against the everyday man, whether by accident or design.

Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Actor: Ami Hasegawa, Gara Takashima, Hidetoshi Nakamura, Hideyuki Hori, Hisako Kyoda, Hisao Egawa, Kayoko Fujii, Keaton Yamada, Keiko Yamamoto, Kenichi Ogata, Koichi Yamadera, Masato Hirano, Michio Hazama, Nobuaki Fukuda, Osamu Saka, Ryoichi Tanaka, Ryuji Nakagi, Shigeru Chiba, Shozo Iizuka, Takkô Ishimori, Tetsuya Iwanaga, Tomoko Ishimura, Tsutomu Isobe, Yuu Hayashi

Director: Katsuhiro Otomo, Koji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura

Rating: PG-13

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, 1996

Many people have forgotten that representation and diversity in media isn’t meant just to fill a quota or to signal virtue– the push for it is in response to the way many of these stories were silenced, repressed, and shut out. Lilies might have been overlooked for quite a while, but its 2023 restoration has thankfully enabled more viewers to watch the tale of an imprisoned gay man finally telling his story, turning the tables on a long overdue confession. Michel Marc Bouchard adapts his play through this play-within-a-film, with director John Greyson playing with the confession booth as a viewing booth for both the bishop and the audience to get fully immersed in a love triangle a century ago, juxtaposed with motifs of martyred Catholic saints and French lilies and fire. Lilies is a well-crafted and deeply emotional masterpiece.

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Actor: Alain Gendreau, Aubert Pallascio, Brent Carver, Danny Gilmore, Gary Farmer, Ian D. Clark, Jason Cadieux, John Dunn-Hill, Khanh Hua, Marcel Sabourin, Matthew Ferguson, Michel Marc Bouchard, Pierre Leblanc, Rémy Girard, Robert Lalonde

Director: John Greyson

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, 2016

Krisha opens with the image you see above, a bright yet stark portrait of the lead of the movie, staring with defiance at the camera. You are invited into the world of an unpredictable 65-year-old who returns home for Thanksgiving after a long disappearance. Her family greets her with mixed emotion, and her nephew (played by the director of the movie), doesn’t even want to be near her. In fact, Krisha is played by the director’s real-life aunt. His mother and grandmother also star in the movie. And the story is inspired by real-life pain: a member of his family who was a recovering addict and who fell back into drugs after a family reunion. This is a low-budget but high-dedication movie. The director, Trey Edward Shults, is a disciple of Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, Knight of Cups), whose style will be easily recognizable to those familiar with it.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Alex Dobrenko, Atheena Frizzell, Augustine Frizzell, Bill Wise, Billie Fairchild, Bryan Casserly, Chase Joliet, Chris Doubek, Krisha Fairchild, Olivia Grace Applegate, Robyn Fairchild, Trey Edward Shults, Victoria Fairchild

Director: Trey Edward Shults

Rating: R

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, 2023

When people think of football, they think of teams, and if not teams, they think of individual goalscorers. Higuita: the Way of the Scorpion focuses instead on a single goalkeeper from Latin America. To be fair, this goalkeeper is René Higuita – even just checking his Wikipedia is bound to pull some curiosity. But the documentary does a great job in introducing the man and his life story, starting with his fantastic scorpion kick before delving into the more personal and sensitive aspects of his life. With the wild gameplays and crazy controversies linked to the man, it’s actually unbelievable how a documentary like this hasn’t been made yet.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: René Higuita

Director: Luis Ara

Rating: R

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, 2007

When a man does things so different that it shifts the industry of an entire nation, but gets accused of shady business practices to get there, it can be tricky to create a compelling narrative to depict a complex man. It’s probably why Guru, suspected by most to be a depiction of one such polyester textile tycoon, is said to be fictional. But it’s also why while the first half is a dynamic, inspiring rags-to-riches story, the second half struggles to create a cohesive message. Still, Guru holds excellent performances, especially that from the film’s leads, and in writer-director Mani Ratnam’s hands, these performances are captured beautifully, scored wonderfully, and weaved into such a striking and memorable drama.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Arya Babbar, Darshan Jariwala, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Madhavan, Mallika Sherawat, Manoj Joshi, Mithun Chakraborty, Nina Kulkarni, Prathap Pothan, R. Madhavan, Rajendra Gupta, Roshan Seth, Sachin Khedekar, Sanjay Mishra, Vidya Balan

Director: Mani Ratnam

Rating: Not Rated, PG-13

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, 2021

Great Freedom is not an easy watch. Apart from the quiet stretches of time and the claustrophobic confines of its prison setting, it also has its lead, Hans Hoffman (played with delicate force by Franz Rogowski) imprisoned again and again and again, unjustly treated like dirt by both his warden and fellow inmates. But as a Jewish gay man who has lived through the war, Hans is no stranger to these trappings. As such, he takes each day as it comes, open to love, pleasure, and friendship, or at least the potential of these, despite the circumstances. And so Great Freedom is also hopeful and romantic, glimmering with the human tendency to not just survive but to live. Slow but compelling, subdued but powerful, Great Freedom is an affecting balancing act that's well worth watching.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance, War

Actor: Alfred Hartung, Andreas Patton, Anton von Lucke, David Burnell IV, Fabian Stumm, Franz Rogowski, Georg Friedrich, Thomas Prenn, Thomas Stecher, Thomas Wehling

Director: Sebastian Meise

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, 2000

When caught between taking pro wrestling too seriously and looking at it like cosplay martial arts, I lean towards the latter precisely because of cultures like this. This documentary gets in the weeds of starry-eyed trainee aspirations, as well as the physical and psychological disfigurement of those dreams that come one dropkick to the face at a time. Saika Takeuchi getting to debut doesn’t even feel like a victory at all. I wonder how much of this only happened to the extent that it did because there were cameras present; then again, I try not to think about this documentary too much.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Chigusa Nagayo, Hisako Sasaki, Kaoru Maeda, Meiko Satomura, Saika Takeuchi, Yuka Sugiyama

Director: Jano Williams, Kim Longinotto

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, 1997

See, usually, when American violence in media is critiqued, it’s usually through analytic studies or overly exaggerated lectures stirring moral panic. Instead of doing this, however, auteur Michael Haneke decided to surpass the crime genre, playing with the form and emotions in Funny Games. It’s terrifying, not because it immediately delves into the violence, but because it starts off with an ordinary, innocuous visit, that gradually escalates into an unpredictable home invasion where two teenagers inflict needless violence in such a scary yet spectacular way, even involving the viewer into their shenanigans. Ironically, this led to Haneke creating a shot-for-shot American remake of this same story, but Funny Games’ break in form made Haneke a director to remember, as he started to film outside his native Austria after the standout thriller.

Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller

Actor: Arno Frisch, Christoph Bantzer, Doris Kunstmann, Frank Giering, Stefan Clapczynski, Susanne Lothar, Susanne Meneghel, Ulrich Mühe

Director: Michael Haneke

Rating: R

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, 1998

First released in 1998, HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon is a fittingly epic series that captures the magnitude of NASA’s missions to the moon. It’s equally informative and dramatic, featuring more real-life characters than you can track and more information than you can sometimes process. Thankfully, Tom Hanks appears at the start of every episode to brief you through the events, and archival footages are smoothly inserted when they’re needed. In the first two hours alone, there are spectacular space flights (with finely aged CGI, mind you) and heated courtroom debates, with each episode operating more like a standalone film than a TV episode. The only downside comes in retrospect: when you’ve seen films like the devastating First Man (about the struggles of Neil Armstrong) and the revelatory Space Race (about the many achievements of neglected Black astronauts), it’s not hard to imagine a version of this series that’s less celebratory and patriotic, and more critical and true to life.

Genre: Action & Adventure, Drama

Actor: Clint Howard, David Clennon, Jay Mohr, John Michael Higgins, Tom Hanks

Rating: TV-PG

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, 2023

Director Garth Davis (who worked with Jane Campion on Top of the Lake) adapts Iain Reid's novel Foe with little concern about realism and veracity. The psychologically dense event at the film's centre—an impending separation of husband and wife—renders the whole world around them meaningless. Saoirse Ronan stars as the self-assured Henrietta (Hen) and Paul Mescal, as the belligerent Junior, two of the last remaining people in rural and farm areas. The year is 2065 and Earth is unrecognizable (peak Anthropocene) and life can be reduced to the impossibility of letting go. One fine day, a stranger comes to visit (Aaron Pierre), informing the couple that Junior has been drafted not to the military, but to a space colonization mission. A most curious triangle forms when Pierre's character decides to stay in the family guest room: there is no telling where Foe will take you, but it will be a long, hard fall; either to the pits of despair or desire, ambivalence galore. 

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller

Actor: Aaron Pierre, David Woods, Jordan Chodziesner, Paul Mescal, Saoirse Ronan, William Freeman, Yesse Spence

Director: Garth Davis

Rating: R

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, 2015

Far From the Madding Crowd is a classic tale, but in terms of story, it has the familiar thread of a lady having to choose between multiple swoon-worthy suitors, which is a common story of many lengthy, overly melodramatic period dramas. However, with the restrained direction of Thomas Vinterberg, and the writing of David Nicholls, known best for his decades sprawling romance in One Day, the fifth film adaptation captures the magic of the classic countryside novel, elevating the old-fashioned romance with an easier, faster flow, and carried by the powerful performance of its cast. Fans of the novel or the 1967 adaptation might feel disappointed at how much was removed, but overall, Far From the Madding Crowd is an exemplary drama adaptation.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Belinda Low, Bradley Hall, Carey Mulligan, David Golt, Dorian Lough, Eloise Oliver, Harry Peacock, Hilton McRae, Jessica Barden, Jody Halse, Jon Gunn, Juno Temple, Mark Wingett, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Pauline Whitaker, Richard Dixon, Sam Phillips, Stuart Davidson, Thomas Arnold, Tilly Vosburgh, Tom Sturridge, Victor McGuire

Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Rating: PG-13

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