Modern Drama Movies: 5 Movies Since 2000 That Shaped the Genre

Life is filled with drama and, as such, so are the movies that people watch. No movie genre, it would seem, is more respected than that of drama, and many of the Academy Award winners throughout the years reflect that distinction.

While comedies allow moviegoers to laugh at the world and horror movies scare audiences and science fiction films make viewers gaze in wonder at the possibilities, modern drama movies continue to make people go to the theater.

Here are five dramas since 2000 that have shaped the modern genre:

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1. "A Beautiful Mind" (2001)

Filmmakers sought to show the effects of schizophrenia and how one man's family and colleagues had to deal with his brilliance and his mental illness at the same time. "'A Beautiful Mind' was something I was hoping to see for years," said Stella March, of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), about the drama, via PBS. "... People have empathy for people with cancer, or Alzheimer's, or Parkinson's, but they often don't have empathy for people with schizophrenia. This movie can reach millions of people and begin to change attitudes that are hard to change."

2. "Hotel Rwanda" (2004)

The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 seemed to draw less media attention in this country than other worldwide tragedies during that decade, but this film – which won Don Cheadle the Oscar for Best Actor – gave Americans pause when Joaquin Phoenix's character said the following: "I think if people see this footage they'll say, 'Oh my God, that's horrible,' and then go on eating their dinners."

3. "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)

Perhaps no other movie this century has explored what it means to be gay and how society reacts to a man loving another man. While there was a conservative backlash against the film – Robert Knight, the director of Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute, said about the movie, via the National Social Science Association, "I can’t think of a more effective way to annoy and alienate most movie-going Americans than to show two cowboys lusting after each other."

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4. "The Hurt Locker" (2008)

The first – and maybe only – great movie about the war in Iraq and what life is like afterward for the soldiers who were there, this film won eight Oscars, including Best Picture. "You may emerge from 'The Hurt Locker' shaken, exhilarated and drained, but you will also be thinking," wrote A.O. Scott in the New York Times regarding the movie. "… 'The Hurt Locker' is a remarkable accomplishment."

5. "Boyhood" (2014)

Director Richard Linklater tried something that had never been done: film a movie during a 12-year span to show the changes – physically, mentally, and emotionally – a boy and his family go through as he grows into an adult. "You see how life just accumulates," Linklater told The Dissolve about the film. "Our fundamental view of the world is measured by who we are today and who we’ve been, and that’s not going anywhere. It’s only expanding throughout our lives, it’s always profound and inescapable how we perceive the world through that viewpoint."

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