Best Drama Movies to Watch on Netflix (Page 15)
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.
If there’s one thing South Korea has a lock on, it’s great revenge stories. This thrilling and intense series follows the journey of a determined woman turning to a powerful crime ring to help her seek revenge for her father’s death. With a fast-paced storyline and expertly executed action sequences, the show keeps you on […]
First They Killed My Father adapts the memoir of Cambodian refugee Loung Ung, and it’s not an easy life she’s lived. From the eyes of her child self, the turbulence of the time is already shocking to see, having had to go through starvation, separation from her family, and being thrown into the Cambodian civil […]
Named as a successor to Breaking Bad in its approach to storytelling, Bloodline is a superb series about a contemporary American family and the secrets it hides. After the black sheep son, Danny, returns to the family, he threatens to expose these secrets. The family is torn between protecting themselves and trying to take him […]
Set in 1970s Italian countryside, this is a quirky movie that’s full of plot twists. Lazzaro is a dedicated worker at a tobacco estate. His village has been indebted to a marquise and like everyone else, he works without a wage and in arduous conditions. Lazzaro strikes a friendship with the son of the marquise, […]
Very violent, very Western, and, in a breath of fresh air: very female. Godless is a grim and visually stunning series about a small New Mexico town populated almost entirely by women, including Alice Fletcher, a reserved and self-reliant widow played by Michelle Dockery. Roy Goode (played by Jeff Daniels, who won an Emmy for […]
From Mike Flanagan, creator of The Haunting anthology, comes Midnight Mass, a miniseries that is just as gory, unsettling, and supernaturally twisted as any Flanagan horror flick. The series follows an ex-convict who returns to his small town just upon the arrival of a mysterious but alluring priest. As inexplicable events start to happen, the […]
This is Breaking Bad meets The Social Network. Based on a true story that took place in Leipzig, Germany in 2015, this show is about Moritz, a high-schooler who starts Europe’s biggest drug market online. He initially does this to impress his ex-girlfriend, who had just come back from the States with new drug experiences. […]
Nadia is a game developer and proud aging hipster living in New York. Her story starts at her thirty-sixth birthday party looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. On her way out, she finds a friend who hands her a joint laced with cocaine, “that’s how the Israelis do it” her friend says. Nadia hooks […]
This colossal-budget show ($90 million for the first season alone) never caught a break. Somehow it didn’t make it to the big audience it deserved. It tells the grand story of Marco Polo the explorer, and the years he spent with the Mongols, going back forth in their ranks between prisoner and leader. It was […]
Horror movies have always been creepier to me when they play on our fear of the “unknown” rather than gore. Under The Shadow does exactly that. The story is based around the relationship of a woman, Shideh, and her daughter, Dorsa, under the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq war. As widespread bombings shake the ground beneath […]
In After Life, Ricky Gervais plays a kind-hearted journalist who turns dark after his wife passes away. Her parting gift to him is a video manual on how to deal with life. But his pessimism and annoyance with people keep delaying him from watching it. Worst of all, a new recruit at the newspaper is […]
1899 is for viewers who love twisty big-budgeted shows in the vein of HBO’s Westworld and Amazon Prime’s Peripheral. It’s set in the titled year and follows migrants from all walks of life as they set sail for New York, the land of opportunity. There’s a priest from Spain, a couple from France, and a […]
There are some actors you feel you see a lot of until a role comes by that makes you think they are actually underused. That’s Ellen Page’s role as Tallulah, a young girl with seemingly little regard for anyone but herself. Travelling the country while living in a van with her boyfriend; with no one […]
This adaptation of a tragedy by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson might retain the mostly minimal setting of its source material — two rooms in a Chicago recording studio — but the searing performances at its heart more than warrant the translation to the big screen. A ferocious Viola Davis plays the titular ‘Mother of […]
The Dig is a reliable telling of an archaeological expedition. The setting is Britain in World War II, and a widow (played by Carey Mulligan) hires an archaeologist (played by Ralph Fiennes) to dig through her estate where a historic discovery is waiting to be found. The biggest thrills are a conflict regarding control of […]
The Siege of Jadotville is a different kind of war movie. It doesn’t recount famous battles or portray renowned heroes – instead, it’s about heroes and events that went completely unnoticed. Namely, the Irish 35 Battalion ‘A’ Company – a group of youngsters who are sent out on a U.N mission to the Congo. What […]
The movie follows Martha (Vanessa Kirby), a young wife who loses her baby in a failed home birth. She tries her best to trudge through the aftermath of loss, but her coping attempts prove to be near impossible, not least because her husband Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and mother Liz (Ellen Burstyn) continually domineer every aspect […]
This Eddie Murphy comedy had all the ingredients to be both a famous movie and an award-winner, but neither happened. It tells the true story of Rudy Ray Moore, a comedian who became famous for creating a character called Dolemite, a pimp, and who later attempted to make his own movie based on the same […]
Life should be difficult for Charlie Spring, an openly gay student in an all-boys high school. And it is, to be sure—he’s mocked, ridiculed, and at times literally shoved to the sidelines. But Hearstopper doesn’t just dwell on misery; rather, it shows us the many colors, the multifaceted wonders, of Charlie’s life. His friends, family, […]
The Sea Beast tells the story of Jacob, a legendary sea monster hunter, and Maisie, a wannabe monster hunter herself. When a dangerous encounter isolates them from the rest of the crew, they’re forced to team up and reconcile their opposing beliefs—Maisie believes there’s good in the beasts, but Jacob has yet to be convinced. […]
Keir Gilchrist who you may know from the movie It’s Kind of a Funny Story plays Sam, an 18-year-old on the autistic spectrum trying to navigate the “typical” aspects of a teenager’s life: dating, independence, friendships, etc. Perhaps people dealing with autism can better attest to this, but the show feels genuine and realistic. Don’t […]
Don’t worry. Adam Sandler doesn’t suck here. This is a beautiful family comedy directed by Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, The Squid and the Whale). Sandler plays a recently divorced man (as he tends to do) called Danny (as he’s usually called). Danny moves in with his father, played by Dustin Hoffman, who himself is dealing […]
This lovely romance is about Ellie, a straight-A student who takes money from a classmate, Paul, to write love letters for him. Ellie does this to help with the household bills but there is one big problem: the girl Paul is in love with is also the girl Ellie has a crush on. This might […]
Many films have tackled the violence of racism in the South, but none are as rich and restrained as Mudbound. The epic follows two families, the white McAllans and the black Jacksons, as they live side by side on the same parcel of land in 1940s Mississippi. The McAllans own it while the Jackons till […]
This is the first film directed by actor Macon Blair (so good in both Blue Ruin and Green Room), and while it is shaggy and tonally all over the place, there is a lot to recommend here. First off, I’m a huge fan of the (underrated) Melanie Lynskey, so I was primed to like this […]
The OA is one of those things that you’ll either absolutely love or loathe. If you like sprawling supernatural shows (like Lost) with Biblical references (like Supernatural), then the OA should be right up your alley. It’s philosophical and dramatic, asking questions about existence and the afterlife, and it has plenty of mystery to keep […]
This new documentary is about the exact scale to which social media is harming us, as testified to by people from the industry: ex-executives at Google, Instagram, Facebook, and even the ex-President of Pinterest. All have left their companies for (incredibly valid) ethical concerns that they share here. It’s a blend of interview footage and […]
This comedy is about a girl whose family moves to the U.S. on September 2001. She grows up to excel academically but, as she asks from the shrine in her room on her first day of sophomore year, she has yet to be cool. “I want to be invited to a party with hard drugs,” […]
This movie’s energy is completely intoxicating. It’s the directorial debut of renown British/Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, but it feels like the work of a veteran. In a true story told in English and Chichewa (a language from Malawi), a young boy is expelled from school because his parents couldn’t afford tuition. At the same time, […]
Fun, wholesome, and relatable, Haikyu!! celebrates the highs and lows of high school volleyball. The show starts off focused on two freshmen volleyball players from opposing middle school teams, who have to learn teamwork in order to be accepted into their high school club. While the team might initially come across as self-conscious, over-the-top, highly […]
This Netflix production is based on a case that rocked public opinion in Italy. Stefano Cucchi was arrested for a minor drug charge and died five days later from police brutality. The movie takes its time to expose what Cucchi went through, which might lead some viewers to find On My Skin slow, and rightfully so. Thinking […]
With its origins as a full-length rock monologue, it’s understandable if Tick, Tick… Boom! comes off as overly concerned with its protagonist’s personal anxieties and not the larger social and health crises happening right outside his door. But while it really doesn’t offer much insight into the AIDS epidemic, or even the art scene of […]
Toni Collette, Jessie Buckley, and Jesse Plemons star in this mind-bending drama from Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich. The Young Woman, as she is known in the movie, takes a day trip with her boyfriend to his family’s secluded farm in Oklahoma. On the way, she thinks about breaking up with him. […]
Less homage to Star Wars than it is a pastiche of that cultural juggernaut, a strong sense of déjà vu hangs over Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon. Unfortunately, in plainly appealing to the memory of its vastly superior inspiration so many times, it inadvertently reminds viewers of how much better its muse is. There are far […]
