Best Drama Movies to Watch

This untamed, high-octane portrait of the Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap follows real-life members —aliases Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, and DJ Próvaí, all playing themselves—as they forge a path from lost teens to unlikely cultural icons. Being the first hip-hop act is their native Irish, they’re met with disdain both from their community who think they […]

KPop Demon Hunters is adorable. The supernatural element adds an interesting twist to the familiar band plot, and writer-directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans brilliantly depict K-pop fandom’s good and bad sides through demonic protection and possession. But it’s impressive how the film handles the storytelling, the music, and the animation. They all work in […]

One thing about director Sean Baker’s movies is that everything is rooted in class. Anora might charm as a romance, delight as a comedy, and dazzle as a realistic look into sex work, but at the end of the day, it’s a movie about labor, specifically exploitation labor, making the movie as painfully realistic as […]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig bravely takes on the increasingly violent patriarchy and theocracy in modern-day Iran. It follows a family of four—Iman, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami), and Sana (Setareh Maleki)—and reveals how the political can creep into the personal. Iman, the father, has just been promoted at work (he’s one step […]

When two young brides are mistakenly swapped on a train, it’s a difficult situation, much more so when the brides in question are both veiled and wearing the same red bridal attire. This seemingly simple swap is the entire plot of Laapataa Ladies, but director Kiran Rao transforms this mishap into a hilarious, yet realistic, […]

Monster is a deceptively simple story about growing up and the many misunderstandings that come with it. It’s told through different points of view, a technique that could easily feel gimmicky in the hands of a lesser director. But with director Hirokazu Kore-eda at the helm, it feels natural and inevitable, as if there was […]

What pushes humanity to reach for the stars? Lost in Starlight is centered on an astronaut hoping to go to Mars, but before she can go, life keeps her back on Earth and makes her have something to return to. As such, it’s more a romantic drama than a sci-fi adventure. It’s easy to recognize […]

The Assessment is a psychological sci-fi thriller following Mia and Aaryan, a wealthy couple applying to be parents in the strictly controlled New World. Their final hurdle is to pass a seven-day assessment conducted by Virginia (Alicia Vikander), who makes sure to test every grain of Mia and Aaryan’s patience and sanity. The trials get […]

Coming of age films are a staple in cinema, but rare is a great depiction of growing up on the internet, chatting with friends, and learning about the world through just a small screen. Dìdi is one of those rare films that remembers that pivotal era, which is why it’s often likened to Bo Burnham’s […]

The first things that grab your attention in Nickel Boys are its beauty and technicality. Director RaMell Ross, a large-format photographer, ensures every frame relays something deep, intimate, and moving. Then there’s how he takes these shots: we see things unfold through the POV of Elwood and Turner, students at an abusive reform school in […]

The worst possible things that could happen, happen to orphaned twins Gracie and Gilbert but still they power on, motivated solely by the hope of being reunited once more. It’s a sweet premise, young siblings on opposite ends of the country encouraging one another with heartfelt letters. And with the soft-spoken Gracie (Snook) narrating the […]

When the world gets dark– when something bad happens that makes you lose your faith in the world around you– it can be hard to think that art would be of any help. After all, a piece of paper with scribbles on it can’t undo the wrong that’s happened, or help out directly with the […]

The Teacher’s Lounge is one of those movies where a simple misunderstanding is blown out of proportion, so much so that it causes the fabric of a community to unravel into chaos. Aided by a precise score, it ticks like a timebomb, with every second filled with so much dread and anxiety you have to […]

There is nothing quite like The Substance right now. It’s unsubtle, it’s provocative, and its satirical humor can be a hit or miss for some viewers, but it strikes at the one thing that’s fundamental to everyone, that can make or break their lives, yet that is rarely given grace and consideration– that is the […]

It’s easy to laugh about an old lady being an unwitting lead in an action film, the joke being that they can’t possibly be that. But June Squibb’s Thelma is. She refuses to be infantilized and undertakes a journey that’s dramatized to great effect. It’s still funny, but without Squibb’s character being the butt of […]

“The healing power of art” sounds cheesy, but it’s a statement made beautiful and true in Ghostlight. It’s the sensitively told and wonderfully performed story of an ordinary man who, up until this point, doesn’t even know how Romeo and Juliet ends. That’s how detached he is from art. But when Rita (Dolly de Leon) […]

Not everybody holds a good relationship with their sisters, but ideally, we get to reunite and repair things in a good time. Unfortunately, for some families, the only time they reunite is due to a parent nearly dying. This is the case in His Three Daughters, where the three sisters meet after years living apart. […]

As in his previous films, Director Andrew Haigh explores the delicate nature of loneliness, grief, and love in All of Us Strangers, except this time he does so through a supernatural lens. The result is mesmerizing: amid the tenderness the film draws from its characters, there’s a swirl of mystery too: how is it possible […]

The first few minutes of Robot Dreams are so deceptively simple and pleasant that it’s hard to think of a conflict that could keep the film moving. But something does happen—life happens, which sounds annoyingly vague, but it’s true. Life happens, and the rest of the film is about how Dog and Robot survive the […]

You would expect a courtroom drama to be built around damning pieces of evidence, passionate speeches, or certain social issues lending weight to the investigation. But what makes Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall so remarkable is how direct it is. Triet doesn’t treat this case like a puzzle for the audience to […]

Made on a clearly lower budget but with enthusiasm and love for the craft overflowing from every frame, Junta Yamaguchi’s River gets clean and wholesome comedy—that’s still plenty memorable—out of a terrific ensemble of actors, all of whom get to display a full range of expression for their increasingly exasperated characters. It’s smart, economical filmmaking […]

Given the original real-life story behind it, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that The Girl with the Needle was so bleak. Serial killing, after all, is bad. But rather than focus on the historical killer, writer-director Magnus von Horn hones the camera to focus on one such mother that would have sought for help from […]

How do you make a film about the Holocaust feel new? How do you make the terrors feel fresh, like it was just in the news, without sounding redundant or without giving into the sensationalized and emotionally manipulative? For Director Jonathan Glazer, the answer lies in not what you show but what you don’t show. […]

To plenty of countries around the globe, democracy has become so ubiquitous that we forget it’s relatively new, at least relative to the rest of human history. Bhutan is one of the last countries that became a democracy, and writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji chose to depict a slice of how they made the shift in […]

“Art heals” is a cliche at this point, but if you want a rich example of how that aphorism is true, look no further than prison rehabilitation programs. And if you want an example of that, Sing Sing is a delicate yet gut-punching film about inmates participating in a theater program. We mainly follow Divine […]

In Sorry, Baby, an unspeakable act of cruelty disrupts Agnes’ ambitious rise to the top. Despite being a literature professor, she struggles to find the words to describe what happened to her. Likewise, the audience isn’t made privy to the details of the incident and relies only on what Agnes chooses to show. It’s a […]

Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag has almost everything you’d expect from a spy movie: explosions, betrayal, sexual tension, and beautiful actors. The plot, too, which involves a software program that could trigger nuclear war, is nothing new. But what makes Black Bag an enjoyable treat is less content and more delivery. Black Bag is swift and […]

Oscar-winner Emerald Fennell got a lot of free reign with her debut, Promising Young Woman, which was a slightly modest ordeal even with a lead of Carrey Mulligan’s calibre. But now, with her sophomore film, she go to have some fun. Assembling a devout cast of particularly skilled actors—Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, and […]

The key to what makes this apocalyptic thriller from Mr Robot and Homecoming showrunner Sam Esmail so unnerving is how resolute it is about not taking place in an alternate timeline. Making references to memorable events in recent history and namechecking real brands and cultural touchstones (like Tesla and Friends), Leave the World Behind is […]

Hurt people hurt people, the saying goes, and nowhere is that more evident than in Hard Truths. Directed by Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky), Hard Truths follows two sisters who couldn’t be more different. One is Chantelle, a cheerful hairdresser who has raised equally ebullient daughters, and the other is Pansy, a […]

Only a few people in Dita’s house are related by blood, but you wouldn’t know that by how they move. They’re tight-knit but argumentative, loving at times but spiteful in other instances. In other words, they’re complicated just like any other family. Housekeeping for Beginners makes a compelling case for the validity—and at times necessity—of […]

What would you do when you win the lottery? Most people would travel, buy a home, spend it on all the things you love, and maybe invest it somewhere. In The Ballad of Wallis Island, Charles Heath does this and uses the remaining pot to bring together the separated folk duo he loves. It makes […]

A Real Pain is a deceptively simple film. There’s not a lot going on on the surface, but Eisenberg’s smart script and tight direction, coupled with Culkin’s firecracker performance fuel the film with heart and infectious energy. A Real Pain shines when it focuses on the cousins’ bond​​at once pained and precious—but it also works […]

Of all the Christmas-set films to have come out over the last couple of months that were, inexplicably, about grief and regret (you’d be surprised by how many there are), The Holdovers easily outdoes its contemporaries by being confident enough to just sit with its characters. Like the best of director Alexander Payne’s other films, […]

Challenging, strange, and utterly captivating from start to finish, Sanctuary takes the relationship between a pathetic, wealthy man and a desperate, plucky young woman—a relationship built on consensual acts of sexual humiliation—and makes it so much more dynamic and entertaining than it has any right to be. The film takes place entirely in one hotel […]

At the height of a military dictatorship in Brazil, forced disappearances were an unfortunately common occurrence. It was the government’s brutal way of weeding out perceived enemies, even though, more often than not, their accusations were baseless. I’m Still Here tells the true story of one such victim, Ruebens Paiva, but through the eyes of […]

Grandparents are often depicted as innately loving, especially towards their grandchildren, so it’s a delight to see someone like M’s Amah, who is testy and tenacious, and quite proud to be doing her own thing even in her old age. She runs her house alone and sells congee in her neighborhood, and even when presented […]

Real life tragedies, especially one that’s as sensationalized as the Miracle in the Andes, can be tough to depict on screen. On one hand, the film has to keep true to the story but also maintain some form of spectacle to keep people watching. Past depictions of the 1972 crash are preoccupied with the cannibalism […]

In Aftersun, Sophie recalls a holiday she took as an eleven-year-old in the ‘90s with her father. Video recordings help jog her memory, but she’s looking for more than just a blast from the past. Rather, she seems to be seeking answers to fill in the gaps between who she knew as her father and […]

All We Imagine as Light is a political film that has many smart and moving things to say about the loneliness of migrating from the country to the city, the double standards women face on the daily, and the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor. But thanks to director Payal Kapadia’s deft hands, these […]

The Order is set in the 1980s, but it may as well have taken place in the present; the terror of white supremacists and the desire to storm the Capitol are eerily relevant. However, as political as The Order is, it works better as a cop drama. Director Justin Kurzel has the thrill of the […]

“Inner beauty is what counts” is a cliche many films have tried and failed to tackle, but A Different Man manages to make it feel unsettlingly new. The film follows Edward, a disfigured man who lives a normal but lonely life. No one is overtly mean to Edward—in fact, many are nice—but he’s consumed by […]

At one point in the documentary, director Kristen Lovell says, “I wanted to archive the movement that was building between transwomen and sex workers,” and that’s exactly what she achieves with The Stroll, a well-researched, creatively edited, and deeply moving account of the trans-sex-work experience that defined New York for a good chunk of the […]

The concepts of roads not taken and domino effects have received plenty of cinematic attention in their showier forms by way of multiverse comic book movies and dimension-hopping films like Everything Everywhere All At Once. But, though there’s no hint of sci-fi in Past Lives, Celine Song’s gentle film can count itself as one of […]

Journeying from Africa to Europe without an official permit isn’t just risky, it’s dehumanizing, if not lethal. And though we’ve heard about the many unfortunate ways migrants have suffered, never has the crisis been as intimately and intensely portrayed as in Io Captain. Here, we get to see who Seydou and Moussa were before the […]

Simple but lovely movies like Fallen Leaves are hard to come by these days. While others rely on complicated dialogue or overly ambitious premises to be deemed deep or important, Director Aki Kaurismäki trusts that his material is strong enough. After all, its silence speaks volumes; the characters don’t say much but when they do, […]

My Old Ass has a very simple premise, one it doesn’t even take the effort of explaining. For whatever reason, 18-year-old Elliot meets her 39-year-old self, and they talk at length about life. Naturally, older Elliot gives her younger self some advice to improve her life. But she also gives her a grave warning: under […]

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t a whodunnit; in fact, it’s closer to a who-didn’t-do-it. We know from the very beginning who is responsible for committing the brutal serial murders of wealthy Osage Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma that the film chronicles: pretty much every single one of their white neighbors, spearheaded by […]