Top 5 drama films

Hello,

A few months ago, I got into the habit of watching a film every night, then I decided to catch up on Game Of Thrones and broke my little ritual.  I did watch quite a few films though, and some of them were absolutely beautiful, so beautiful I now feel the need to share them with as many of you as I can.
I'm a very cynical person, which means I have trouble getting "carried away" by films, I've yet to find a horror film that scares me, they tend to make me giggle. But the films I am going to talk about today managed to suck me in completely, suspend the time and, for some of them, make me cry.

"The piano"

Year: 1993
Genre: Romantic, Drama
Director: Jane Campion
Main actors: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neil
Plot: Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter), a mute who has willed herself not to speak, and her strong-willed young daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) find themselves in the New Zealand wilderness, with Ada the imported bride of dullard land-grabber Stewart (Sam Neill). Ada immediately takes a dislike to Stewart when he refuses to carry her beloved piano home with them. But Stewart makes a deal with his overseer George Baines (Harvey Keitel) to take the piano off his hands. Attracted to Ada, Baines agrees to return the piano in exchange for a series of piano lessons...

Only one word could describe this film: Incredible. Everything in it was perfect, the music, the actors, the story, the ending... So beautiful yet so violent, a kind of emotional violence that hits you hard and in the right places. It was made on a tiny budget, all of the actors really wanted to be there and you can feel it in the way they play.  This film deserves to be seen by everybody, its beauty is hardly describable, it can't leave you indifferent.

"Mommy"

Year: 2014
Genre: Drama
Director: Xavier Dolan
Main actors: Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément
Plot: Forty-six year old Diane Després - "Die" - has been widowed for three years. Considered white trash by many, Die does whatever she needs, including strutting her body in front of male employers, to make an honest living. That bread-winning ability is affected when she makes the decision to remove her only offspring, fifteen year old Steve Després, from his previously imposed institutionalization, one step below juvenile detention. She institutionalized him shortly following her husband's death due to Steve's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and his violent outbursts....

I'm not sure whether this film has been distributed in America and/or in The UK yet. If it has, you should definitely give it a watch. Even though this movie, directed by a 26 year old, lasted more than two hours, I didn't get bored for one second. I was captivated by the different relationships built between all of the characters (all brilliantly played), the son himself displaying a few different personalities. This film is an emmotionnal rollercoaster, you go from laughter to tears, from frightened to releaved... Plus if you can watch in VO (I didn't understand the canadian french, even as a frenchy) with subtitles, you can ensure yourself a few good laughs. 

"The green mile"

Year: 1999
Genre: Drama, fantastic, policier
Director: Frank Darabont
Main actors: Michael Clarke Duncan, Tom Hanks, David Morse...
Plot: Paul Edgecomb is a slightly cynical veteran prison guard on Death row in the 1930's. His faith, and sanity, deteriorated by watching men live and die, Edgecomb is about to have a complete turn around in attitude. Enter John Coffey, He's eight feet tall. He has hands the size of waffle irons. He's been accused of the murder of two children... and he's afraid to sleep in a cell without a night-light. Edgecomb, as well as the other prison guards - Brutus, a sympathetic guard, and Percy, a stuck up, perverse, and violent person, are in for a strange experience that involves intelligent mice, brutal executions, and the revelation about Coffey's innocence and his true identity.

I saw this masterpiece years ago, and so much of it remains in my mind. It was the first film ever to make me cry, and god knows I tried to resist. You can't fail to become attached to the characters, all of them, you love them, despise them...up to you but the actors are so incredibly good you will feel something. This film is a brilliant blend of drama, policier and fantastic, making the impossible believable. Now that I've seen it, I feel I have the duty to persuade everybody to sit dow (for nearly three hours, though it doesn't seem like it) and watch this work of art.

"The war zone"

Year:1999
Genre: Drama
Director: Tim Roth
Main actors: Lara Belmont, Tilda Swinton, Ray Winston, Freddy Cunliffe...

Plot Synopsis: 15-year-old Tom is brooding over his family’s relocation from London to an isolated rural hamlet. His naive adolescence is jolted apart, however, when he unwittingly discovers a harrowing truth about his family, a truth hidden by a deliberate, desperate silence from his father and sister.

I can't say I liked this film. I admire the way it progresses: slowly easing you into the dark, dark atmosphere, the way it was shot: amazing view, incredible camera work, the actors (not one single miss in the cast), the musique... But one can't "like" this film. Simply because it's not pleasant, it will probably scar you for life, it's the closest to a real horror film I have ever seen, with no blod nor chainsaw, it's a love story too, bitter, extreme love... To avoid on a date night!

"Life is beautiful"

Year: 1947 or (the one I saw) 1997
Genre: Drama, Love story
Director: Roberto Benigni
Main actors: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Gorgio Cantarini...
Plot: In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish book keeper named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.

I saw this film years ago, and remember it as being the second film ever to make me cry (see"the green mile"). I'm sure you've all heard about this sweet and bitter story, it has rightly become a classic. The movie is another perfect blend of love and "horror",innocence and painful reality. If you're in for a second round of emotional rollecoaster, definitely give this film a watch. I have never seen the 1947 version though, if you have, could you tell me how it is?

That concludes my top 5 drama films. Drama films are my favorite to watch, as I find I like stories with a bit of depht, in wich you can really get involved with the characters.

Let me know wich films are your favorites and if you have seen one the movies mentioned above, tell me what you though about it.

See you next time,
Maddy