Movies in the Drama/Comedy genre

In 2014, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son missed the #1 spot on my annual Top 10 list by a whisker (it was one of three films that year to which I awarded four stars). A few years later, his Shoplifters topped the l...

Up and Down, from renowned Czech director Jan Hrebejk, is a mix of drama and black comedy, with a fair amount of social commentary stirred in. It targets racism and social injustice while developing characters we gradually come to sympathize with....

Just because someone’s life was interesting as viewed through the lens of the nightly news doesn’t mean it’s worthy of a feature film. Or, in the case of former Vice President Dick Cheney, perhaps the filmmakers’ unwillingness to peel ...

The Wackness is a period piece drama that takes viewers back to the summer of 1994 in New York City. It's three months in the life of a drug dealer as he traverses the road from high school graduation to the start of college. This is basically a ...

As the end credits for The Way Way Back started to roll, I found myself wistfully wishing there could be a sequel to this movie. It's not because the narrative feels incomplete or because there are dangling plot threads. Instead, it's simply becaus...

Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) has a problem. Living in New York with a well-paying job, a nice home, and a stable relationship (with Simon, played by Mitchell Lichtenstein), everything appears to be going his way. But his parents, unaware of his homose...

Although Where’d You Go, Bernadette suffers from an ungainly structure and uneven pacing, the production as a whole is engaging and uplifting. This is due in part to the strength of the cast but also owes something to director Richard Linkla...

While We're Young offers two movies for the price of one.  The first, about a married couple in their 40s coping with being rootless and middle-aged while lamenting the loss of their youth, is smartly-observed and relatable.  The second...

Whip It, the directorial debut of actress Drew Barrymore, is a sports film that uneasily straddles the divide that exists between comedy and drama. Built upon a mountain of clichés, the screenplay wallows in artificiality and, although some of th...