The Best Dramatic Movies to Watch on Tubi

Golda Meir was Israel’s only female Prime Minister and that’s already reason enough a biopic celebrating her historical importance would be made. Oscar-winning Israeli director Guy Nattiv rose to the task and Meir’s own grandson requested British actress Helen Mirren to play the role of his grandmother (a decision that was not left undisputed). However, […]

Sweetwater has a precious story in its hands, along with a sparkling cast of tried-and-true actors and a generous budget that allows them to go all in with the movie’s 1950s setting. But the parts are far greater than the sum here, because all together, Sweetwater is a mess. It promises to be a biopic […]

Susie Searches begins intriguingly for two reasons: first, there’s the strange disappearance of popular college student Jesse Wilcox (Alex Wolff), and then there’s the fact that that mystery is solved in the film’s first 20-ish minutes. With over an hour left of its runtime at this point, Susie Searches seems to suggest Jesse’s disappearance was […]

When he’s accepted into the prestigious Islamic university Al-Azhar, fisherman’s son Adam (Tawfeek Barhom) gets an eye-opening education — but not the kind he expected. A place associated with notions of purity is imagined as a hotbed of hypocrisy and corruption here, as naive young Adam finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a state plot to […]

Admittedly, it’s hard to watch the first twenty minutes of Dinner in America. The slurs are gratuitous, the suburban families are superficially satiric, and it seemed at first glance the leads were, too. But when the punk singer and his awkward fan meet, and they start driving around the Midwest, there’s a charming chemistry formed […]

Based on the novel by Women Talking author Miriam Toews, this adaptation of All My Puny Sorrows holds clear reverence for its source material but falls short of making a case for its existence as a film. Toews’s prose—significant parts of which writer/director Michael McGowan has kept intact in the dialogue—may be appropriate for a […]

Minari is a film written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, about a Korean-American family in search of the so-called American Dream. It is an intimate drama that is powerful yet quiet, and filled with moments of innocence. With dreamlike scoring, unique characters, and a captivating climax, this movie tugs on the heartstrings, and serves […]

Escape from Mogadishu follows diplomats from the North and South Korean embassies as they put aside their differences and work together to escape from an outbreak of civil war in Mogadishu, Somalia. Director Ryoo Seung-wan provides thrilling, high-budget action, especially intense car chases and suspenseful escape scenes that pump you with adrenaline and leave you […]

There’s a powerful drama in here somewhere, where the toll of wrongful imprisonment tests the resolve of an Armenian repatriate, as he clings to traces of hope that he can see just beyond his prison cell window. Unfortunately, Amerikatsi constantly overstates itself through corny jokes and music choices, and it overestimates how compelling its mostly […]

When Mikey Saber’s porn career takes a dip in California, he returns to an estranged wife in Texas, where he meets new and old friends alike and attempts to rebuild his life through a couple of odd jobs. Though Mikey eventually earns his keep, his vanity and eagerness to succeed at all costs threaten to […]

Director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) reunites with Mads Mikkelsen to tell the story of four teachers going through a mid-life crisis. They’re not sad, exactly—they have homes and jobs and are good friends with each other—but they’re not happy either. Unlike the ebullient youth they teach, they seem to have lost their lust for life, […]

On his first day of class in the remote village of Lunana, the city teacher Ugyen asks his students what they want to be when they grow up. One of the children, a young boy named Sangay, answers that he aspires to be a teacher “because a teacher touches the future.” Lunana: A Yak in […]

Based on the first jury trial in South Korea, Juror 8 tells the story of eight ordinary citizens with different backgrounds who are summoned to be the jurors of a case that’s believed to be a murder. These characters who have no background or knowledge in law find themselves able to decide someone’s fate. Unlike […]

The bond between parent and child is fundamental to the child’s life, but not necessarily the other way around. Even when the parents chose to have them into their lives, the child will always live within the parent’s context, not the other way around. Based on a book by Christine Angot, An Impossible Love is […]

This coming-of-age story starts in the present time, where Elle Marja, now a grandmother, reluctantly goes to her sister’s funeral held by her old indigenous Sámi community in Northern Sweden. Understanding her reluctance requires going back to when Elle Marja was 14 and was preparing to go to boarding school with her little sister. These […]

It’s always fun to watch something that makes you second guess each move, that shifts seamlessly from one thing to another. Frantz is that kind of film, and as the deceptively simple premise unfolds—a widow befriends her late husband’s friend—you’re never really sure if what you’re watching is a romance, a mystery, or a sly […]

In rural Korea a policeman starts to investigate peculiar and violent events that most of the people in his village attribute to the arrival of a new Japanese resident. As the occurrences keep multiplying, and different perspectives in the film are shown, you start to lose touch with reality in the face of what can […]

Prior to being defined by that fateful bombing in 1945, Hiroshima was like any other city outside of Tokyo; small but full, quiet but busy, and in the midst of a slow-but-sure journey to modernization. We experience the rich and intimate details of this life through the kind-hearted Suzu, who herself is stuck between the […]

Florence Pugh broke through with her powerhouse performance here as Katherine, a young woman who is “sold” into a coldly transactional marriage with a cruel and impotent merchant in 1800s Northern England. Lady Macbeth seems to begin as one thing — a gloomy period tale of oppression and feminist rebellion — but, on the strength […]

Bryan Cranston, best known for his role as Walter White in the Breaking Bad series, stars as Robert Mazur, a federal agent, who goes undercover to infiltrate the trafficking network of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. With the film based on Mazur’s memoir, Bryan Cranston gives an impressive lead performance that captures the intense distress […]

This small movie set over one summer weekend is a tender and affecting coming-of-age drama. Jack is a bullied adolescent who lives in a run-down small town. When his aunt falls sick, he has to take care of his cousin, a younger and even more vulnerable kid. Their relationship evolves in this sensitive drama that […]

Due to the fictional romantic subplot and the need to explain the historical background, it takes around half its runtime for North Face to get to where they want to go. For some viewers, that might be too long. But for others, the lengthy set-up eventually rewards them with an exhilarating adventure, as the two […]

While the mixed reception of its near-faithful American remake Vanilla Sky might make some viewers pause, there’s an intuitive brilliance in the Spanish original Open Your Eyes that isn’t easy to translate. Sure, the apparent differences help– it’s shorter and less complicated, and Cesar’s face turns more grotesque than David’s does. But what’s startling about […]

There are plenty of films about dreamers, but none as wild and wacky as Fitzcarraldo. The film follows the titular opera-loving foreigner, who’s obsessed with creating an opera house in the middle of a jungle, and tries to get the funding for it throug the rubber business. It’s a pretty wacky premise, and a pretty […]

Christine is about Christine Chubbuck, an awkward and complex reporter who was the first person ever to commit suicide on live TV. Rebecca Hall is terrific as Chubbuck and goes to great lengths to communicate the personality of her subject matter. The movie might seem slow at times, and her acting off, but it’ll all […]

When A Better Tomorrow was released, its producers expected a box office bomb. It was more melodramatic than most action films prior, and the cast was not well known then. Instead, this gangster flick became a surprise box office hit. The reasons it was expected to fail were also the very reasons it succeeded, as […]