33 Favorite Dramas

by Jonathanbsn | created - 25 Apr 2011 | updated - 25 May 2011 | Public

This is a list containing my personal favorite drama movies. In no particular order. I hope you'll enjoy it!

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1. Raging Bull (1980)

R | 129 min | Biography, Drama, Sport

90 Metascore

The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent

Votes: 380,024 | Gross: $23.38M

2. The Ice Storm (1997)

R | 112 min | Drama

72 Metascore

In suburban New Canaan, Connecticut, 1973, middle-class families experimenting with casual sex and substance abuse find their lives beyond their control.

Director: Ang Lee | Stars: Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Henry Czerny

Votes: 59,947 | Gross: $7.84M

3. Poetry (2010)

TV-PG | 139 min | Drama

87 Metascore

A sixty-something woman, faced with the discovery of a heinous family crime and in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, finds strength and purpose when she enrolls in a poetry class.

Director: Lee Chang-dong | Stars: Yun Jeong-hie, Lee Da-wit, Kim Hee-ra, Ahn Nae-sang

Votes: 13,528 | Gross: $0.36M

4. Mysterious Skin (2004)

Unrated | 105 min | Drama

74 Metascore

Two pre-adolescent boys both experienced a strange event and later it affects their lives in different ways. One becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous prostitute, while the other retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction.

Director: Gregg Araki | Stars: Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elisabeth Shue, Chase Ellison

Votes: 76,282 | Gross: $0.70M

5. The Return (2003)

Not Rated | 110 min | Drama

82 Metascore

In the Russian wilderness, two brothers face a range of new, conflicting emotions when their father - a man they know only through a single photograph - resurfaces.

Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev | Stars: Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko, Nataliya Vdovina

Votes: 47,494 | Gross: $0.50M

6. American Beauty (1999)

R | 122 min | Drama

84 Metascore

A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend.

Director: Sam Mendes | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley

Votes: 1,210,444 | Gross: $130.10M

7. All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)

Unrated | 146 min | Crime, Drama, Music

73 Metascore

The problematic lives of teenager students for whom the singer Lily Chou-Chou's dreamy music is the only way to escape an alienating, violent and insensitive society.

Director: Shunji Iwai | Stars: Hayato Ichihara, Shûgo Oshinari, Ayumi Ito, Takao Osawa

Votes: 11,158 | Gross: $0.02M

8. A Single Man (2009)

R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

77 Metascore

An English professor, one year after the sudden death of his boyfriend, is unable to cope with his typical days in 1960s Los Angeles.

Director: Tom Ford | Stars: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult

Votes: 117,727 | Gross: $9.17M

9. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

R | 102 min | Drama

71 Metascore

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep..

Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans

Votes: 898,251 | Gross: $3.64M

10. The Wrestler (2008)

R | 109 min | Drama, Sport

80 Metascore

A faded professional wrestler must retire, but finds his quest for a new life outside the ring a dispiriting struggle.

Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Mark Margolis

Votes: 319,863 | Gross: $26.24M

11. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

R | 103 min | Drama, Romance

85 Metascore

A boy is raised by a Buddhist monk in an isolated floating temple where the years pass like the seasons.

Director: Kim Ki-duk | Stars: Kim Ki-duk, Oh Yeong-su, Jong-ho Kim, Kim Young-min

Votes: 86,790 | Gross: $2.38M

12. The Conformist (1970)

R | 113 min | Drama

100 Metascore

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio

Votes: 33,675 | Gross: $0.54M

13. Talk to Her (2002)

R | 112 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance

86 Metascore

Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar | Stars: Rosario Flores, Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling

Votes: 117,465 | Gross: $9.36M

14. The Class (2007)

99 min | Drama

An average Estonian high-schooler decides to defend his bullied classmate. This starts war between him and the informal leader of the class. As teenagers' honour is a touchy thing, everything ends in bloodshed.

Director: Ilmar Raag | Stars: Vallo Kirs, Pärt Uusberg, Lauri Pedaja, Paula Solvak

Votes: 15,851

15. Lilya 4-Ever (2002)

R | 109 min | Crime, Drama

83 Metascore

Sixteen-year-old Lilja and her only friend, the young boy Volodja, live in Russia, fantasizing about a better life. One day, Lilja falls in love with Andrej, who is going to Sweden, and invites Lilja to come along and start a new life.

Director: Lukas Moodysson | Stars: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharskiy, Pavel Ponomaryov, Lyubov Agapova

Votes: 49,369 | Gross: $0.18M

16. Magnolia (1999)

R | 188 min | Drama

78 Metascore

An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Votes: 328,361 | Gross: $22.46M

17. Still Walking (2008)

Not Rated | 115 min | Drama

89 Metascore

A family gathers together for a commemorative ritual whose nature only gradually becomes clear.

Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu | Stars: Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, You, Kazuya Takahashi

Votes: 18,600 | Gross: $0.16M

18. Nobody Knows (2004)

PG-13 | 141 min | Drama

88 Metascore

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu | Stars: Yûya Yagira, Ayu Kitaura, Hiei Kimura, Momoko Shimizu

Votes: 31,388 | Gross: $0.68M

19. Three Colors: Blue (1993)

R | 94 min | Drama, Music, Mystery

87 Metascore

A woman struggles to find a way to live her life after the death of her husband and child.

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski | Stars: Juliette Binoche, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy, Benoît Régent

Votes: 110,452 | Gross: $1.32M

20. Lichter (2003)

105 min | Drama

This movie reflects on the situation around the border between Poland and Germany. The fate of many single characters creates a picture of life in this region: Some Ukrainians want to cross... See full summary »

Director: Hans-Christian Schmid | Stars: Andrzej Górak, Anna Yanovskaya, Sergey Frolov, Bartek Wójtowicz

Votes: 2,106

21. Amores Perros (2000)

R | 154 min | Drama, Thriller

83 Metascore

An amateur dog fighter, a supermodel, and a derelict assassin, all separately struggling to find love, find their lives transformed by a devastating car wreck in Mexico City.

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Emilio Echevarría, Gael García Bernal, Goya Toledo, Álvaro Guerrero

Votes: 252,815 | Gross: $5.38M

22. The Visitor (I) (2007)

PG-13 | 104 min | Drama

79 Metascore

A college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment.

Director: Tom McCarthy | Stars: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira, Hiam Abbass

Votes: 44,520 | Gross: $9.42M

23. Traffic (2000)

R | 147 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

86 Metascore

A conservative judge is appointed by the President to spearhead America's escalating war against drugs, only to discover that his teenage daughter is a crack addict. Two DEA agents protect an informant. A jailed drug baron's wife attempts to carry on the family business.

Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas

Votes: 219,686 | Gross: $124.12M

24. Do the Right Thing (1989)

R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama

93 Metascore

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson

Votes: 112,353 | Gross: $27.55M

25. Goodbye Solo (2008)

R | 91 min | Drama

89 Metascore

Two men form an unlikely friendship that will change both of their lives forever.

Director: Ramin Bahrani | Stars: Souleymane Sy Savane, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo, Lane 'Roc' Williams

Votes: 6,154 | Gross: $0.87M

26. The Best of Youth (2003)

R | 374 min | Drama, Romance

89 Metascore

An Italian epic that follows the lives of two brothers from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Director: Marco Tullio Giordana | Stars: Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Jasmine Trinca, Adriana Asti

Votes: 23,199 | Gross: $0.27M

27. The Class (2008)

PG-13 | 128 min | Drama

92 Metascore

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

Director: Laurent Cantet | Stars: François Bégaudeau, Agame Malembo-Emene, Angélica Sancio, Arthur Fogel

Votes: 36,398 | Gross: $3.77M

28. The Son (2002)

103 min | Drama, Mystery

86 Metascore

A joinery instructor at a rehab center refuses to take a new teen as his apprentice, but then begins to follow the boy through the hallways and streets.

Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne | Stars: Olivier Gourmet, Morgan Marinne, Isabella Soupart, Nassim Hassaïni

Votes: 10,091 | Gross: $0.07M

29. The King's Speech (2010)

R | 118 min | Biography, Drama, History

88 Metascore

The story of King George VI, his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer.

Director: Tom Hooper | Stars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacobi

Votes: 707,752 | Gross: $138.80M

30. Bloody Sunday (2002)

R | 111 min | Drama, History, War

90 Metascore

A dramatization of the Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops on January 30, 1972.

Director: Paul Greengrass | Stars: James Nesbitt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nicholas Farrell, Allan Gildea

Votes: 25,750 | Gross: $0.77M

31. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

R | 133 min | Drama

84 Metascore

In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.

Director: Milos Forman | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Michael Berryman, Peter Brocco

Votes: 1,071,859 | Gross: $112.00M

32. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)

Not Rated | 113 min | Drama

97 Metascore

A woman assists her friend in arranging an illegal abortion in 1980s Romania.

Director: Cristian Mungiu | Stars: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean

Votes: 63,278 | Gross: $1.19M

33. Chop Shop (2007)

Unrated | 84 min | Drama

83 Metascore

Alejandro, a resourceful street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his sixteen-year-old sister.

Director: Ramin Bahrani | Stars: Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales, Rob Sowulski, Carlos Zapata

Votes: 4,718 | Gross: $0.12M



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