Movies in the Drama/Thriller genre

The Good Shepherd is Robert DeNiro's fictionalized account of the birth and early years of the CIA. While the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent, many of the characters have real-life counterparts. The lengthy movie (15 minute...

First and foremost, Harsh Times is a character study of a man whose psychotic dark side is rising up to dominate his personality. However, it's also a look at how war, because of its need to legitimatize killing and turn people into weapons, can r...

Heaven represents the fusion of stoic contemplation with kinetic mysticism – German filmmaker Tom Tykwer's adaptation of the final screenplay by the great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski (who wrote it with longtime partner, Krzysztof P...

There are no tumbleweeds in Hell or High Water, but there might as well be. The Texas terrain, as bleak and barren as any landscape this side of Tombstone, is a constant presence, as forceful a character as any played by a human actor. It speaks of p...

I have occasionally wondered what Showgirls might be like if it was made by a female director. Perhaps Hustlers offers a glimpse of the tantalizing possibility. Existing close to the nexus of the oft-derided Paul Verhoeven film and Martin Scor...

If there’s one thing I have learned about Charlie Kaufman over the years, it’s that he’s a much better screenwriter than director. Collaborating with the likes of Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of ...

The Iceman offers a chronological view into the life of its title protagonist... and what a life it is. Based on the book The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer by Anthony Bruno, director Ariel Vromen's film presents a slightly fiction...

"Et tu, Brute?" The Ides of March illustrates the universally acknowledged truism that nothing can corrupt idealism more completely than politics. The sad thing about this American tragedy is that not a single twist, turn, or betrayal is difficu...

In Secret, an adaptation of Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin, is an effective period piece thriller that incorporates love, lust, desperation, and madness into a stew thickened by a gothic atmosphere. The film’s shortcomings - the most notable of wh...

In the Company of Men is one of those rarest of rare breeds -- a movie that doesn't just ignore Hollywood conventions, but openly flouts them. The film, which premiered to great critical acclaim at 1997's Sundance Film Festival, initially had trou...