769 Best Releases From the Genre Drama (Page 9)
Mrs. Davis
NetworkPeacock,
Watch afterBEEF Citadel, Fleabag, Good Omens, South Park, Tulsa King, Twisted Metal,
Betty Gilpin is a dramatic arts treasure. Capable of ringing tears or laughs out of any situation she deserves all her flowers and more. She is so good, her portrayal of Sister Simone nearly pulls Mrs. Davis across into great television. Continue Reading →
すずめの戸締まり
SimilarCatwoman (2004), Mary Poppins (1964), The Science of Sleep (2006),
Watch afterEvil Dead Rise (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
Like the Oracle said to Neo, "Everything that has a beginning has an end." But "ending" is not synonymous with "annihilation." Whether it's a literal, physical remnant (say, an amusement park that remains standing even years after being shut down) or patterns that folks continue out of habit or the hopes of feeling something (think Yūsuke Kafuku continuing to rehearse for Uncle Vanya with his late wife's recording years after her death in Drive My Car—whose co-lead Tōko Miura was a key contributor to the soundtrack of Makoto Shinkai's last film, Weathering With You). Continue Reading →
Dead Ringers
When it comes to prestige limited streaming series, horror movies (especially of the more grotesque persuasion) don’t tend to be common fodder. But with Rachel Weisz at the helm, Prime Video’s latest thriller series, Dead Ringers, looks to David Cronenberg’s 1988 film of the same name. Though undoubtedly a formidable showcase for Weisz, who pulls double duty as twins Elliot and Beverly, Dead Ringers struggles to remain fresh and interesting, often overstaying its welcome and retreading familiar territory. Admittedly, swapping the genders of its protagonists makes for an interesting approach to the subject matter. But Dead Ringers lacks the killer instincts and stylistic flair that makes the film so fondly remembered. Continue Reading →
Obsession
Watch afterBEEF Chucky, Citadel, From, Ratched,
The Mandalorian The Night Agent, The Sandman, The White Lotus,
Certain events dig so deep into our culture that they define many subsequent examples of the form. Watergate has led to decades of any possibly notable scandal receiving a -gate suffix. Any British band with pop-rock sensibilities often spends a year or two followed by the question, “the next Beatles?”. And, currently, any erotic thriller with a hint of BDSM flavor gains the tag “the new Fifty Shades of Grey.” For a brief time, 365 Days, a Polish film brought to wider audiences thanks to Netflix, lived under that banner. Now the streaming service is giving it another shot with the four-part series Obsession. Continue Reading →
Slip
You ever have a really great orgasm? Like so strong it sends you into an entirely different dimension? Now imagine that’s not a metaphor. Welcome to the premise of creator-writer-director-star Zoe Lister-Jones’ Slip. Continue Reading →
Barry
SimilarBrazil Avenue, Catterick, Hunter x Hunter, Murder Most Horrid,
The theme music is gone. Continue Reading →
Florida Man
Watch afterBarry,
BEEF Citadel, ONE PIECE, Only Murders in the Building, Succession, The Night Agent,
The modern age of streaming shows has delivered countless programs that boast in their press releases about being “just long movies.” The new Netflix limited series Florida Man continues this trend. Worse, it puts its own insufferable spin on the mold by stretching out a late-1990s Quentin Tarantino knock-off to nearly seven hours of storytelling. Yearning for a return to the era of non-linear crime dramas embracing the notion that F-bombs and shady behavior turn the story into the new Reservoir Dogs? This Donald Todd-created series will make you giddy. Unfortunately, everyone else will likely come away irritated. Continue Reading →
The Last Thing He Told Me
Hollywood not giving Jennifer Garner the roles she deserves is hardly its biggest sin. That said, it's fairly disappointing that the powers that be have so rarely found projects worth of the actor in the past 30 years. Continue Reading →
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
When a show enters its final season, it has an opportunity to decide what it really wants to say. And what The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel wants to say is this: For all her tenacity, Susie (Alex Borstein) genuinely cares about the people in her orbit, especially her first client. For all that he's been a presumptuous prick, Joel (Michael Zegen) has become a better man. For all his professorial condescension, Abe (Tony Shalhoub) realizes how wrong he's been about so many things. And for all her immense talent and unflappable air, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) must and will scratch and claw to get the chances denied her because of her gender and prove that this isn't just a phase; it's who she was meant to be. Continue Reading →
Flashdance
SimilarAs It Is in Heaven (2004), The Party (1980),
Forty years on, Adrian Lyne's tale of welding, dancing, dreaming, and cold-shoulder sweaters still leaves us all feeling like maniacs.
Personally, the notion of referring to films as "guilty pleasures" has always struck me as slightly absurd—if a movie can touch, thrill, amuse, arouse or otherwise entertain you in some way, don't feel guilty about it.
So when I say that I've been a huge fan of Flashdance since its original release in 1983 (and can confirm, via the new 40th anniversary 4K UHD release from Paramount Home Video, that I still adore it), I feel absolutely no guilt or shame. Sure, the film is as preposterous a concoction as has ever been placed before a camera, assembled in such a calculating manner that you practically hear the gears grinding away in the background. But every time I've watched it over the years—and that's a lot—I find myself falling under its goofy spell once more. Continue Reading →
On a Wing and a Prayer
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), The Whale (2022),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
It’s 2009: Owl City changed the way people looked at fireflies, America was gripped by the reality TV exploits of a couple with eight kids. Oh, and an ordinary man with little flying experience named Doug White had to land a private plane with his family onboard after the pilot fell unconscious. The year of Balloon Boy was a wild one. Continue Reading →
BEEF
It takes a little while to find Beef’s groove. This critic assures you that this is not the classic of the streaming age, “give it a few episodes” warning. By the end of the first episode, you will know if the series is for you. However, everything about the show feels overwhelming in the first eight to ten minutes. Continue Reading →
Air
SimilarAnna and the King (1999), Brubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), I Stand Alone (1998), Mississippi Burning (1988), Raging Bull (1980), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006),
Watch afterThe Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
What makes an object meaningful? The plans its creators had for it? The image that its consumers build into it? The purpose it serves? The one who wields it? Continue Reading →
Tiny Beautiful Things
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Around the World in 80 Days, Helltown, No Escape, Santa Evita, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Wycliffe,
StudioABC Signature,
If you belonged to a certain group of very online Millennials around 2011, then the chances that a Dear Sugar letter changed your life or permanently lodged itself in your brain are high. I know it’s certainly true for me. That means I’m carrying a certain degree of baggage to Hulu’s newest series, Tiny Beautiful Things, based on the book of the same name--a collection of Dear Sugar’s best advice columns)--and Sugar herself, Cheryl Strayed, who stepped forward as the columnist in 2012. Continue Reading →
Transatlantic
GenreDrama War & Politics,
While Anna Winger’s new series Transatlantic is visually and textually lush, it opens a stark portrayal of the refugee experience. It’s painful, watching as they struggle with the terrain, carrying everything they have in their arms. You hear every labored breath, see every sweat stain. This long opening sequence sets the tone for the rest of the seven-part series–it isn’t glamorous or glossy, just beautifully filtered misery, fear, and hope. Continue Reading →
Unstable
Unstable appears to be a deeply personal show for lead actor and co-creator Rob Lowe. After all, it revolves around a father/son duo played by Lowe and his real-life son, John Owen Lowe. Rob Lowe’s headlined worse stuff than this, for sure. Nonetheless, you’d think a series that seems rooted in something this personal would be more engaging to watch. At least, it might take some bold swings. Tragically, Unstable is a mostly just average comedy that leaves little in the way of an impression for good or ill. Continue Reading →
I Used to Be Funny
Rachel Sennott excels in a film that never rises to the level of her performance.
Having already more than proven her comedic chops in the great Shiva Baby and the not-so-great Bodies Bodies Bodies, I Used to Be Funny finds rising star Rachel Sennott showing off her dramatic chops for a change. In this task, she succeeds. Alas, that’s more than can be said about the film as a whole. It proves to be little more than an angsty muddle that never quite seems to know what it is trying to accomplish.
She plays Sam, a stand-up comedian whose rising career stalled due to a recent traumatic incident. She’s been unable to return to the stage or do much of anything ever since. Instead, she just holes up in a house she shares with two loving but worried roommates. Then, one day, she hears a news report about a missing 14-year-old girl named Brooke (Olga Petsa). Realizing she may have been the last person to see Brooke alive jolts her from her malaise. Continue Reading →
Yellowjackets
NetworkShowtime,
SimilarConstellation, Cruel Summer, From, Luther, Sonny Boy,
StudioShowtime Networks,
Season one of Showtime's surprise hit Yellowjackets left us with as many questions as it answered. With the show's sophomore season—launching this week—creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson take us deeper into their strange, terrifying wonderland, doling out mystery, horror, humor, and some exquisite needle drops. Prepare for a Tori Amos renaissance in the vein of Kate Bush's success on Stranger Things 4. Continue Reading →
Raging Grace
SimilarLéon: The Professional (1994), Stranger Than Paradise (1984),
The Grand Jury Prize winner gives audiences two different flavors of terror.
Raging Grace, the feature debut from writer-director Paris Zarcilla just won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s SXSW. It’s a film that offers viewers two horror narratives for the price of one. The first is a standard sort involving a creepy mansion, shocking family secrets, and other traditional genre tropes. The second, on the other hand, replaces the overtly spooky elements with more realistic, if no less tense and disturbing, story points.
In that narrative, the audience follows an undocumented worker as she seeks a better life for herself and her child. Instead, she lands in the clutches of real-life monsters determined to exploit others’ desperation for their own twisted gains. Raging Grace handles both approaches effectively. Ultimately, the latter track stings the hardest and will linger longest in the minds of viewers. Continue Reading →
Swarm
Every episode of Amazon’s Swarm begins with a title card that reads, “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is intentional.” Continue Reading →
Gotham Knights
SimilarGARO, HAPPY!, Loonatics Unleashed, Madan Senki Ryukendo, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, The Batman,
It’s a year ending with a number, so, once again, someone’s launching a live-action TV show rooted in Batman’s mythology but doesn’t star Batman. That show, following in the footsteps of Gotham and Pennyworth: The Origins of Batman’s Butler, is none other than Gotham Knights. A brand-new CW production, it aims to be a “next generation” tale of sorts. The audience follows a motley group of teens possessed of assorted connections to Batman characters, old and new. By the time the first episodes wrap, viewers will undoubtedly want to shine a signal into the sky to summon a better TV show. Continue Reading →