These dramas aren’t your typical tearjerkers. Our selection features the latest films that dive deep into the pressing issues of today — from feminism and social media to pain, childhood trauma, and more. Looking for a great movie to watch tonight? Explore our collection of the best dramas of 2023.
Content
- Poor Things
- Beau Is Afraid
- The Leftovers
- Past Lives
- Wicked Games: Rimini Sparta
- Evil Does Not Exist
- Close Your Eyes
- May December
- Perfect Days
- Monster
Poor Things
IMDb: 8.3/10
2023, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
Ireland, UK, USA, R
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Top Cast: Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo
The movie is centered on Bella Baxter. No one else exists like her in her age group. Bella has an adult appearance. However, she does act as if she is but a child. Her «father,» a scientist, regularly conducts strange experiments. Gradually, Bella reaches puberty. She sets off for an adventure through the world and through herself, exploring sexuality, freedom, and also independence, and not wanting to live by the rules of a patriarchal society. Poor Things is an absurdist film that makes you think about many things, including freedom, feminism, and ethics.
Beau Is Afraid
IMDb: 6.7/10
2023, Comedy, Drama, Mystery
USA, R
Director: Ari Aster
Top Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan
Beau is an apprehensive and isolated man living constantly afraid. After she died, he starts an incredible, strange adventure home to go to his mother’s funeral. But this adventure turns out to be far and more. What was to come was beyond imagining for anyone. Childhood traumas, bizarre situations, and fears create a whirlwind into which Beau descends when reality blurs with fantasy. In a strange as well as unsettling way, the film explores maternal tyranny, guilt, plus the psychology of anxiety.
The Leftovers
IMDb: 8.3/10
2014–2017, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
USA, TV-MA
Director: Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta
Top Cast: Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman, Christopher Eccleston
2% of the world’s population vanished. That’s about 140 million people. No one left behind has any idea what caused the mysterious disappearance. Meanwhile, in the small American town of Mapleton, people are trying to cope with loss, trauma, and the search for meaning in a world that’s been changed forever.
Past Lives
IMDb: 7.8/10
2023, Drama, Romance
South Korea, USA, PG-13
Director: Celine Song
Top Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Nora and Hae Sung were close childhood friends in South Korea. But their paths split when Nora’s family emigrated to Canada. Twenty years later, they meet again in New York.
The film explores the concept of inyun — the idea of a fated connection between people — as well as themes of missed chances, choice, and identity. It’s a quiet, emotional, and deeply moving story about a love that’s impossible to forget.
Wicked Games: Rimini Sparta
2023, Drama
Austria, France, Germany
Director: Ulrich Seidl
Top Cast: Georg Friedrich, Tessa Göttlicher, Claudia Martini
The film combines Rimini and Sparta which are two previously released works by an Austrian director. The story it tells is of two brothers: one, a singer within a resort town, with the other, a former teacher throughout Eastern Europe. They battle with old trauma internally as they seek purpose throughout life. Meanwhile, their elderly father does live in a nursing home because of the fact that he suffers from dementia. This film is harsh and provocative. It concerns morality, shame, memory, and reckoning in turn.
Evil Does Not Exist
IMDb: 6.4/10
2023, Drama
Japan, PG
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Top Cast: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka
In the small Japanese village of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Hana lives quietly with Takumi, a man bereaved. Life flows gently for them within nature’s harmony. But everything alters if a company from Tokyo makes plans. For city residents, there are plans to construct a campsite close by. This disturbance hurts the delicate relationship connecting humans and nature. The film meditatively disrupts the environment as it raises ethics questions while it connects humanity to nature. The story is both minimalist and also deep. Its atmosphere is of a quietly unsettling type.
Close Your Eyes
IMDb: 7.2/10
2023, Drama, Mystery
Spain, Argentina, Not Rated
Director: Víctor Erice
Top Cast: Manolo Solo, José Coronado, Ana Torrent
During the filming of a movie in the 1990s, actor Julio Arenas disappears without a trace. Many years later, his friend and director revisits the case when a popular TV show decides to investigate the disappearance. In the process, he is confronted with memories, old friends, and painful revelations. This is a meditative drama about memory, forgetting, aging, and lost time. The film marks the long-awaited return of Víctor Erice after nearly 30 years away from directing.
May December
IMDb: 6.7/10
2023, Drama
United States, R
Director: Todd Haynes
Top Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
The story takes place around 20 years after a scandal that involved an adult woman who had a relationship with a boy of 13 and then married him. Now, for a biopic, an actress immerses herself into their lives to play this woman. Gradually, reality as well as performance begin to blur along the line. May December looks into hidden violence, remorse, reputation, and manipulation. Ironically, the film offers a dramatic take on the normal facade’s psychology. Powerful performances highlight the film’s tense, ambiguous atmosphere.
Perfect Days
IMDb: 7.9/10
2023, Drama
Japan, Germany, Not Rated
Director: Wim Wenders
Top Cast: Kōji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Aoi Yamada
The main character Hirayama in the city of Tokyo works as a cleaner for public toilets. He leads a modest, orderly life in addition to following a simple daily routine: cleaning, listening to his favorite cassette tapes, reading books, and photographing trees on old film. But even beneath this outward simplicity exists a rich inner world and also a quiet history of pain. The movie is a tribute to common living and worth. Even in ordinary living, beauty exists sometimes. Storytelling is like a delicate and touching piece.
Monster
IMDb: 7.8/10
2023, Drama, Thriller
Japan, Not Rated
Director: Hirokazu Kore-edaSakura Andō, Eita Nagayama, Soya Kurokawa
After her son begins acting strangely, his mother thinks something occurred while he was at school. She demands to get answers from the teacher. Her action sets in motion a chain of events that reveals a series of misunderstandings. The film unfolds from the child, the teacher, along with the mother’s perspectives. Each new layer gives the story added importance. Monster Explores examines ideas like school bullying, parental love, social stereotypes, and the nature of truth. The score had been composed by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto for it. It did mark his final work then.
