A good drama movie lets you get inside the head of a character dealing with life on an emotional level.
The movie review site Rotten Tomatoes totes up critical reviews to arrive at its 100 best cinema dramas.
Here are the site’s top 10 made since 1990, together with each modern movie’s place on the overall top 100 list and it’s “freshness” rating – the percentage of positive reviews out of all the movie’s reviews:
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1. "Gravity" (2013) (No. 7, 97 percent)
George Clooney and Sandra Bullock survive a disaster in Earth orbit in this movie hailed for its special effects.
“The audience experiences the weightlessness and vast distances in space in a way no other film has accomplished before,” Mark Hughes wrote in Forbes.
2. "Selma" (2015) (No. 8; 99 percent)
The civil rights fight led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) is captured in the story of three turbulent months of 1965. “Do not believe anyone trying to make “Selma” a factional thing, a liberal or conservative, black, white, or hashtag movie.
It transcends all that,” Rebecca Cusey wrote in The Federalist about the drama.
3. "Boyhood" (2014) (No. 9; 98 percent)
A boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and the actor playing him grow up before the audience’s eyes during the 12 years it took to film this movie.
“It's like a time-lapse photo of an expanding consciousness,” Liam Lacey wrote for the Toronto Globe and Mail.
4. "12 Years a Slave" (2013) (No. 20, 96 percent)
A free black man (Chiwetel Ejiofor) from New York is kidnapped and made a slave in the pre-Civil War South in the film, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 2014.
Craig Matthieson wrote in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald that the movie is “so fluent and so certain – both in its humanism and its depiction of institutionalized savagery.”
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5. "Argo" (2012) (No. 23, 96 percent)
A fictional movie about a real-life fake movie that played a role in the rescue of six Americans hiding from the hostage-takers in Iran.
“I can't remember the last time I was in a movie theater audience that clapped. Twice,” wrote Christianity Today’s Camerin Courtney. “Even I clapped. It's that good.”
6. "The Artist" (2011) (No. 32, 98 percent)
For him, the sky is falling. For her, the sky’s the limit as Hollywood greets the dawn of talking pictures.
“A great American film – of the sort it takes the French to make,” wrote British reviewer Jonathan Romney in The Independent.
7. "L.A. Confidential" (1997) (No. 33, 99 percent)
Law and disorder collide on the seamy side of 1950s Hollywood in
a movie that, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Wilmington, “dishes up the dirt, the pimps and politicians, the killers and hookers with a cool eye and a sense of humor – and overwhelming evil.”
8. "The Wrestler" (2008) (No. 34, 98 percent)
A former pro wrestling star grapples with the decline of his fame, his family and his life in this film starring Mickey Rourke.
“Savor one of cinema's rawest talents finally powerslamming his way to glory,” wrote Ben Rawson-Jones for Digital Spy.
9. "The Hurt Locker" (2009) (No. 36, 98 percent)
A soldier’s eye view of the war in Iraq, based on a journalist’s experiences with a real-life bomb-disposal unit, won the Best Picture Oscar in 2010.
Clint O’Connor of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer called it “one of the best-made films of 2009.”
10. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" (2011) (No. 46, 96 percent)
Hogwarts’ boy wizard (Daniel Radcliffe) completes his journey to manhood with a lot of help from his friends in the final movie of the "Harry Potter" series. “It has been a true coming-of-age saga,
in the fullest and most moving sense of the term,” wrote Christopher Kelly in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
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