Realism
see all genres ›Character development and emotional themes are key to the dramatic film. Though generally serious, dramas range widely in tone and scale. Intimate relationships and social issues are perennial subjects.
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Genres / Drama / Realism
SUB-GENRES · Pseudodocumentary · Docudrama · Social Realism · Neo-realism · Magic Realism · Pseudorealism
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A Film Unfinished
At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film, having sat undisturbed in an East German archive, was discovered. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply "Ghetto," this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw...Watch Movie
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Wendy and Lucy
Named to over sixty "Best of 2008" lists (and even many "Best of the Decade" lists), WENDY AND LUCY solidified filmmaker Kelly Reichardt's reputation for films that are (according to the New York Times) "a touchstone of the new realism in American cinema." Drifting upwards to Alaska like a 21st...Watch Movie
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Fitzcarraldo
Werner Herzog's most epically-scaled film was inspired by an actual historical incident of stranger-than-fiction curiosity. In the late 1800s Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald had an entire steamship laboriously transported over a mountain in order to open a trade passage from rubber-rich...Watch Movie
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The Clowns
Federico Fellini's fascination with the circus and the surreal come to a head in one of his final masterpieces, THE CLOWNS. The film reflects Fellini's childhood obsession with clowns and begins with a young boy watching a circus set up from his bedroom window. Though comical and referred to as a...Watch Movie
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On the Bowery
ON THE BOWERY chronicles three days in the drinking life of Ray Salyer, a part-time railroad worker adrift on New York's skid row, the Bowery. When the film first opened it 1956, it exploded on the screen, burning away years of Hollywood artifice, jump-starting the post-war American independent...Watch Movie
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Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Dieter Dengler knew he needed to fly from the moment when, as a little boy in war-torn Germany, he witnessed a fighter jet nearly clip his apartment building like some "almighty being." Within twenty years he was flying missions in Vietnam for the United States military. He...Watch Movie
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Elles
Director Malgorzata Szumowska's ELLES paints an unromantic picture of upper-crust domesticity. ELLES stars the fearless Juliette Binoche (CHOCOLAT) as Anne, a well-off Parisian journalist investigating the lives of two student prostitutes (Joanna Kulig and AnaпїЅs Demoustier) for a magazine...Watch Movie
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In the City of Sylvia
A young artist searches the winding streets of Strasbourg for an old love in Jose Luis Guerin's acclaimed and exceedingly beautiful IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA. During a languid summer, a young man spends his afternoons sketching in an outdoor café. He is looking for a woman he met...Watch Movie
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Shirin
A vibrant, daringly original work from Abbas Kiarostami, SHIRIN is the flowering of an experimentalist streak that’s been evident in many of the director’s most well-known features, including CLOSE-UP, TASTE OF CHERRY and others. Ostensibly an adaptation of a 12th century Persian poem about a...Watch Movie
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River Memories
Over one thousand people of different nationalities live among rats and rubbish in shacks slapped together out of metal sheets and wood. It's the platz, one of the largest shanty towns in Europe, on the banks of the river Stura in Turin. Many children, women, and old people have been living here...Watch Movie
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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Suffering from acute kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating...Watch Movie
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Neighboring Sounds
One of the most acclaimed films of the year, NEIGHBORING SOUNDS is the thrilling debut from filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho. On a quiet block in the coastal city of Recife, ruled by an aging patriarch and his sons, a recent spate of petty crime has rattled the nerves of the...Watch Movie
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The Exonerated
Sunny Jacobs was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit. Sixteen years was just the beginning of what was taken from Sunny Jacobs. Twenty-nine Academy Award® nominations, eighty-seven Golden Globe nominations, one hundred and twelve Emmy nominations: such is the...Watch Movie
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Paulista
In this steamy Brazilian drama, SпїЅo Paulo is a hotbed for intrigue amongst the young, restless and alive. A freespirited actress who leaves her devoted provincial boyfriend behind to make it in the big city, Marina (Sylvia Laurenco) dives into the big city's nightlife-driven energy. She finds...Watch Movie
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Dreams of a Life
Nobody noticed when thirty-eight year old Joyce Vincent died in her apartment in North London in 2003. Three years later when her skeleton was discovered, her heating and television were still on. Who was Joyce Vincent and how could her death have gone unnoticed for so long?...Watch Movie
