Dave Tompkins :: DVD Library :: IMDb Charts :: Top by Genre :: Drama


(text-only version)

1.Waar (2013)
2.Redirected (2014)
3.  The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.

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4.  The Godfather (1972)

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

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5.  The Godfather: Part II (1974)

The early life & career of Vito Corleone in 1920's New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-Revolution 1958 Cuba.

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6.  The Dark Knight (2008)

Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as it drives each of them to their limits.

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7.  Pulp Fiction (1994)

The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

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8.  12 Angry Men (1957)

A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court.

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9.  Schindler's List (1993)

Oskar Schindler uses Jews to start a factory in Poland during the war. He witnesses the horrors endured by the Jews, and starts to save them.

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10.The Marathon Family (1982)
11.  Fight Club (1999)

An office employee and a soap salesman build a global organization to help vent male aggression.

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12.Who's Singin' Over There? (1980)
13.Balkan Spy (1984)
14.Anand (1971)
15.  Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest Gump, while not intelligent, has accidentally been present at many historic moments, but his true love, Jenny, eludes him.

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16.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Upon arrival at a mental institution, a brash rebel rallies the patients together to take on the oppressive Nurse Ratched, a woman more a dictator than a nurse.

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17.  The Seven Samurai (1954)

A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves.

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18.The Dunce Class on Vacation (1978)
19.  Goodfellas (1990)

Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.

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20.The Girl with the Red Scarf (1978)
21.  City of God (2002)

Two boys growing up in a violent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro take different paths: one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer.

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22.The Broken Landlord (1985)
23.The Bandit (1996)
24.  It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed.

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25.Feyzo, the Polite One (1978)
26.  City Lights (1931)

The Tramp struggles to help a blind flower girl he has fallen in love with.

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27.  Leon (1994)

Professional assassin Leon reluctantly takes care of 12-year-old Mathilda, a neighbor whose parents are killed, and teaches her his trade.

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28.  Casablanca (1942)

Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

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29.  The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

A young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.

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30.  Life is Beautiful (1997)

A Jewish man has a wonderful romance with the help of his humour, but must use that same quality to protect his son in a Nazi death camp.

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31.  The Intouchables (2011)

After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caretaker.

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32.Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
33.  American History X (1998)

A former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did.

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34.  Rang De Basanti (2006)

A young woman from England comes to India to make a documentary about her grandfather's diary which was written in the 1920s about the Indian Independence with five young men.

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35.Sholay (1975)
36.Philanthropy (2002)
37.  Modern Times (1936)

The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.

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38.  Like Stars on Earth (2007)

An eight year old boy is thought to be lazy and a troublemaker, until the new art teacher has the patience and compassion to discover the real problem behind his struggles in school.

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39.  Sunset Boulevard (1950)

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

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40.  Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of US soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

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41.  The Message (1977)

Handsomely-mounted historical epic concerns the birth of the

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42.Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)
43.  Harakiri (1962)

Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty...

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44.  The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.

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45.  Cinema Paradiso (1988)

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

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46.  The Pianist (2002)

A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.

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47.  Apocalypse Now (1979)

During the on-going Vietnam War, Captain Willard is sent on a dangerous mission into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret who has set himself up as a God among a local tribe.

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48.  Django Unchained (2012)

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

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49.  The Green Mile (1999)

The story about the lives of guards on death row leading up to the execution of black man accused of child murder & rape, who has the power of faith healing.

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50.  The Great Dictator (1940)

In Chaplin's satire on Nazi Germany, dictator Adenoid Hynkel has a double... a poor Jewish barber... who one day is mistaken for Hynkel.

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Count: 35 / 50