Melodramas, a list by Riz

6.7

/244714/

69

/4769/

67

/4819/

3.4

/364329/

74

/69/

Audience

77

/572444/

60

/20/

2.0

age 16+

In director Baz Luhrmann's contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.

77

6.8

/52247/

66

/1537/

67

/519/

3.7

/443333/

91

/316/

Audience

65

/1860/

86

/53/

4.0

age 15+

Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.

79

7.7

/125680/

76

/1917/

74

/1596/

3.8

/95385/

97

/68/

Audience

90

/131049/

84

/21/

2.5

age 11+

The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. When Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son from his first marriage, John and wife Fanny. But these circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's current wife, and daughters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.

7

71

7.2

/267348/

72

/7123/

69

/3556/

3.7

/138154/

76

/169/

Audience

73

/168726/

64

/34/

3.0

age 17+

Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun — but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team is sent to finish the mission as mankind’s last hope.

54

6.2

/190319/

66

/5366/

62

/2836/

2.9

/60890/

45

/97/

Audience

43

/341004/

40

/20/

2.5

A seven-mile-wide space rock is hurtling toward Earth, threatening to obliterate the planet. Now, it's up to the president of the United States to save the world. He appoints a tough-as-nails veteran astronaut to lead a joint American-Russian crew into space to destroy the comet before impact. Meanwhile, an enterprising reporter uses her smarts to uncover the scoop of the century.

60

6.9

/22552/

72

/484/

67

/257/

3.4

/25078/

39

/38/

Audience

88

/50645/

46

/19/

1.5

age 9+

A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.

81

7.7

/56669/

74

/711/

74

/582/

4.0

/37108/

89

/104/

Audience

88

/23327/

86

/18/

age 14+

Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.

77

7.8

/58564/

79

/1317/

76

/690/

3.6

/9445/

82

/143/

Audience

89

/35850/

68

/32/

3.0

age 14+

The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.

60

6.4

/30424/

72

/788/

68

/539/

3.5

/20256/

32

/98/

Audience

73

/321018/

53

/25/

2.0

age 12+

Haley is a naturally gifted athlete but, with her social behavior, the teen seems intent on squandering her abilities. After a final brush with the law, a judge sentences her to an elite gymnastics academy run by a legendary, hard-nosed coach. Once there, Haley's rebellious attitude wins her both friends and enemies.

78

7.9

/116777/

78

/1688/

78

/1691/

4.2

/114115/

70

/122/

Audience

91

/57887/

63

/33/

3.5

Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles - even if just for a moment - by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.

65

7.0

/28873/

76

/480/

66

/245/

3.5

/12256/

43

/44/

Audience

88

/71267/

46

/18/

2.5

age 13+

A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.

51

6.7

/94569/

71

/1545/

69

/1249/

3.0

/20407/

15

/99/

Audience

76

/94696/

27

/30/

1.0

age 14+

Nelson is a man devoted to his advertising career in San Francisco. One day, while taking a driving test at the DMV, he meets Sara. She is very different from the other women in his life. Nelson causes her to miss out on taking the test and later that day she tracks him down. One thing leads to another and Nelson ends up living with her through a November that will change his life forever.

58

6.2

/70454/

66

/1391/

62

/985/

2.8

/27993/

43

/176/

Audience

48

/139120/

43

/35/

3.5

age 15+

Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he's suddenly faced with single fatherhood, a defunct career and having to move in with his father. To bounce back, it takes a new love and the courage instilled in him by his daughter.

51

6.1

/2095/

55

/23/

54

/16/

3.1

/406/

20

/10/

Audience

46

/1068/

2.5

Delilah Potts has always had her choice of men to work her ranch and fill her bed. But from the moment Clay Hewitt, a handsome drifter with a mysterious past, arrives at her door, Delilah knows that her life will never be the same. And when he spurns her affections, she unleashes a torrent of forbidden passions and deadly secrets that will prove to Clay that the only thing darker and more dangerous than the past he's escaping... is the one he's about to discover.

65

6.2

/2045/

67

/109/

58

/65/

3.2

/2748/

82

/62/

Audience

71

/34/

60

/15/

2.5

age 15+

Under small-town scrutiny, a withdrawn farmer’s daughter forges an intimate friendship with a worldly but reckless new girl in 1960s Oklahoma.

53

6.3

/7696/

69

/109/

62

/113/

3.1

/1601/

24

/21/

Audience

50

/6272/

46

/11/

2.0

Farming family battles severe storms, a bank threatening to reposses their farm, and other hard times in a battle to save and hold on to their farm.

76

6.8

/31376/

69

/1184/

66

/668/

3.6

/62979/

94

/219/

Audience

72

/2039/

80

/41/

3.5

age 15+

14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

59

6.6

/7912/

65

/63/

62

/103/

3.2

/1931/

43

/101/

Audience

60

/24134/

55

/27/

2.5

Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...

74

6.7

/3085/

66

/33/

63

/24/

3.7

/2650/

94

/18/

Audience

73

/1317/

3.5

Several lost-soul night-owls, including a nightclub owner, a talkback radio relationships counseller, and an itinerant stranger have encounters that expose their contradictions and anxieties about love and acceptance.

68

6.4

/3529/

64

/20/

60

/26/

3.3

/850/

85

/93/

Audience

58

/2976/

76

/35/

3.0

An introspective dentist's suspicions about his wife's infidelity stresses his mental well being and family life to the breaking point.

69

68

7.4

/25839/

73

/334/

59

/443/

3.7

/7555/

65

/100/

Audience

87

/21500/

57

/31/

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

71

6.9

/12698/

70

/128/

65

/119/

3.4

/3591/

88

/60/

Audience

71

/9649/

63

/25/

3.0

age 15+

A career woman reassesses her parents' lives after she is forced to care for her cancer-stricken mother.

54

6.6

/4958/

64

/60/

64

/49/

3.1

/1047/

20

/10/

Audience

78

/5402/

1.0

Billy Wyatt (Harmon), a former high school and minor-league baseball baseball player receives a telephone call from his mother revealing that his former child-sitter, and later in his teens, his first love, Katie Chandler (Foster), has died. Wyatt returns home to deal with this tragedy reminescing over his childhood growing up with his father, Katie and best friend Alan Appleby.

70

7.1

/4168/

72

/72/

63

/57/

3.4

/833/

73

/22/

Audience

72

/2606/

71

/17/

3.0

Earl Pilcher Jr. runs an equipment rental outfit in Arkansas, lives with his wife and kids and parents, and rarely takes off his gimme cap. His mother dies, leaving a letter explaining he's not her natural son, but the son of a Black woman who died in childbirth; plus, he has a half brother Ray, in Chicago, she wants him to visit. Earl makes the trip, initially receiving a cold welcome from Ray and Ray's son, Virgil. His birth mother's sister, Aunt T., an aged and blind matriarch, takes Earl in tow and insists that the family open up to him.

66

7.0

/18931/

73

/416/

69

/371/

3.4

/7286/

55

/22/

Audience

76

/19599/

56

/26/

A fateful night in 1959, four people die when the bus they are riding crashes. They continue as ghosts; their souls become eternally entwined to the life of a child born at the moment of their deaths as his guardians. Baby Thomas grows up to be a businessman who has memories of his playmates, but assumes they are products of his youthful imagination. When the ghosts realize they need Thomas' help to move on to the afterlife, they decide to make an appearance once more.

75

7.2

/1238/

72

/7/

64

/11/

3.5

/282/

4.0

A drama based on the novel by Charles Dickens which tells the story of Arthur Clennam who is thrown into a debtor's prison. There he meets a young seamstress whose father has been imprisoned for twenty-five years. A film in originally released in two parts.

72

6.5

/343/

65

/2/

60

/2/

90

/10/

Audience

78

/43/

3.0

A reclusive aging widower struggling with tax problems has a complete change in his views of life as he has a chance encounter with a young woman who moves in with him briefly.

76

71

7.0

/9002/

71

/171/

68

/150/

3.8

/18624/

94

/31/

Audience

81

/6788/

72

/12/

Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart -- until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow.

62

6.1

/21919/

63

/208/

58

/252/

2.9

/5753/

65

/124/

Audience

58

/36100/

53

/26/

3.5

age 17+

Even though he's the only black student at the elite Palmetto Grove Academy, star basketball player and future NBA hopeful Odin James has the adoration of all, including the team's coach and the Dean's beautiful daughter Desi. Odin's troubled friend Hugo, the coach's son, is deeply resentful of his father's preference of Odin on and off the court. When Hugo plots a diabolical scheme to sow the seed of mistrust between O and Desi, it sets in motion a disturbing chain of events which erupts into a firestorm of breathtaking intensity.

58

6.7

/128233/

71

/4108/

73

/4082/

2.8

/68611/

35

/141/

Audience

61

/48946/

46

/36/

2.5

age 14+

Mia Hall, a talented young cellist, thought the most difficult decision she would ever have to make would be whether to pursue her musical dreams at prestigious Juilliard or follow her heart to be with the love of her life, Adam, a rock singer/guitarist. However, a car wreck changes everything in an instant, and now Mia's life hangs in the balance. Suspended between life and death, Mia faces a choice that will decide her future.

74

6.9

/51440/

72

/916/

67

/662/

3.6

/30838/

80

/66/

Audience

83

/44552/

64

/21/

3.5

age 17+

A basketball player's father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.

52

6.0

/6953/

67

/521/

63

/427/

2.8

/10197/

30

/44/

Audience

44

/2719/

47

/21/

2.0

age 13+

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.

74

7.9

/75437/

77

/634/

75

/361/

3.7

/19781/

73

/11/

Audience

91

/30863/

54

/4/

An uptight MBA student falls for the charismatic new neighbor who charms her troubled family – but he has a secret that forces him to push her away.

67

6.0

/12190/

73

/284/

62

/153/

3.3

/8388/

56

/34/

Audience

79

/38249/

3.0

Cheated on, mistreated and stepped on, the women are holding their breath, waiting for the elusive "good man" to break a string of less-than-stellar lovers. Friends and confidants Vannah, Bernie, Glo and Robin talk it all out, determined to find a better way to breathe.

76

7.7

/22475/

74

/233/

70

/181/

3.6

/2664/

82

/112/

Audience

90

/30724/

63

/31/

3.5

age 13+

Nine-year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day...

74

7.1

/19631/

73

/287/

71

/254/

3.3

/4627/

70

/30/

Audience

85

/9287/

3.5

Veronica is brilliant, gifted and beautiful, but the handsome aristocrat she loves, Marco Venier, cannot marry her because she is penniless and of questionable family. So Veronica's mother, Paola, teaches her to become a courtesan, one of the exotic companions favored by the richest and most powerful Venetian men. Veronica courageously uses her charms to change destiny -- and to give herself a chance at true love.

63

58

6.3

/9909/

62

/239/

65

/172/

3.0

/1980/

Audience

66

/21208/

age 13+

Flight 93 is a 2006 made-for-TV film, directed by Peter Markle, which chronicles the events aboard United Airlines Flight 93 during the September 11 attacks. It premiered January 30, 2006 on the A&E Network and was re-broadcast several times throughout 2006. The film focused heavily on eight passengers, namely Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Lauren Grandcolas, Donald Greene, Nicole Miller, and Honor Elizabeth Wainio. It features small appearances from many other passengers, namely Donald Peterson and his wife, Jean, and also from flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw.

59

6.1

/2853/

60

/31/

57

/32/

3.1

/574/

29

/7/

Audience

76

/6003/

45

/18/

3.5

Barmaid Stella Claire and blueblood Stephen Dallas have very little in common -- except they've fallen in love. When their relationship fails, Stella decides to raise the child they had, Jenny, alone. But Jenny and Stella are far from the perfect mother-daughter pair.

62

6.2

/18667/

61

/250/

61

/262/

3.1

/9039/

63

/89/

Audience

55

/39758/

59

/33/

3.0

age 14+

Single mother Adele August is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann, is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, Calif., to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.

59

55

6.6

/14345/

66

/220/

66

/261/

3.1

/5932/

31

/13/

Audience

66

/9836/

Young orphan Heathcliff is adopted by the wealthy Earnshaw family and moves into their estate, Wuthering Heights. Soon, the new resident falls for his compassionate foster sister, Cathy. The two share a remarkable bond that seems unbreakable until Cathy, feeling the pressure of social convention, suppresses her feelings and marries Edgar Linton, a man of means who befits her stature. Heathcliff vows to win her back.

63

6.3

/10858/

65

/178/

60

/145/

3.1

/6202/

65

/20/

Audience

51

/4234/

63

/20/

3.0

Wimpy young executive Michael is about to get pulverized by a jealous boyfriend in a bar when a handsome, mysterious stranger steps in—and then disappears. Later that night, Michael runs into a stranger on a pier, who wheedles his way into Michael's life and turns it upside down.

63

6.7

/12348/

68

/169/

62

/122/

3.8

/17511/

53

/106/

Audience

74

/8315/

56

/39/

2.0

age 16+

TV producer Pierre Delacroix becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a 21st century minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it becomes a smash hit.

63

6.7

/9917/

66

/106/

63

/113/

3.3

/3114/

58

/24/

Audience

59

/2829/

56

/16/

3.0

Albany, New York, Halloween, 1938. Francis Phelan and Helen Archer are bums, back in their birth city. She was a singer on the radio, he a major league pitcher. Death surrounds them: she's sick, a pal has cancer, he digs graves at the cemetery and visits the grave of his infant son whom he dropped; visions of his past haunt him, including ghosts of two men he killed. That night, out drinking, Helen tries to sing at a bar. Next day, Fran visits his wife and children and meets a grandson. He could stay, but decides it's not for him. Helen gets their things out of storage and finds a hotel. Amidst their mistakes and dereliction, the film explores their code of fairness and loyalty.

54

6.3

/6182/

67

/88/

61

/132/

3.0

/1237/

26

/19/

Audience

66

/3471/

1.5

Anna Karenina, the wife of a Russian imperial minister, creates a high-society scandal by an affair with Count Vronsky, a dashing cavalry officer in 19th-century St. Petersburg.

71

63

6.6

/4406/

68

/75/

63

/51/

3.5

/4985/

81

/16/

Audience

73

/2370/