Browse Movies : Released : 2009 : Drama

A reinvention of the original Oscar®-winning hit film, "Fame" follows a talented group of dancers, singers, actors, and artists over four years at the New York City High School of Performing Arts, a diverse, creative powerhouse where students from all walks of life are given a chance to live out their dreams and achieve real and lasting fame...the kind that comes only from talent, dedication, and hard work.

In an incredibly competitive atmosphere, plagued by self-doubt, each student’s passion will be put to the test. In addition to their artistic goals, they have to deal with everything else that goes along with high school, a tumultuous time full of schoolwork, deep friendships, budding romance, and self-discovery. As each student strives for his or her moment in the spotlight, they’ll discover who among them has the innate talent and necessary discipline to succeed. With the love and support of their friends and fellow artists, they’ll find out who amongst them will achieve "Fame"…

The film is the continuation of writer/director Troy Duffy's tough, stylized cutting edge saga of the MacManus brothers (Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery). The two have been in deep hiding with their father, Il Duce (Billy Connolly), in the quiet valleys of Ireland, far removed from their former vigilante lives. When word comes that a beloved priest has been killed by sinister forces from deep within the mob, the brothers return to Boston to mount a violent and bloody crusade to bring justice to those responsible. With a new partner in crime (Clifton Collins Jr., Star Trek) and a sexy FBI operative (Julie Benz) hot on their trail...the Saints are back!

"Sin Nombre" is an epic dramatic thriller written and directed by Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga in his feature debut. The filmmaker’s firsthand experiences with Central American immigrants seeking the promise of the U.S. form the basis of the Spanish-language movie.

"Sin Nombre" tells the story of Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a teenager living in Honduras, and hungering for a brighter future. A reunion with her long-estranged father gives Sayra her only real option – emigrating with her father and her uncle into Mexico and then the United States, where her father now has a new family.

Meanwhile, Casper, a.k.a. Willy (Edgar Flores), is a teenager living in Tapachula, Mexico, and facing an uncertain future. A member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang brotherhood, he has just brought to the Mara a new recruit, 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), who undergoes a rough initiation.

While Smiley quickly takes to gang life, Casper tries to protect his relationship with girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana García), keeping their love a secret from the Mara. But when Martha encounters Tapachula’s Mara leader Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), she is brutally taken from Casper forever.

Sayra and her relatives manage to cross over into Mexico. There, they join other immigrants waiting at the Tapachula train yards. When a States-bound freight train arrives one night, they successfully rush to board – riding atop it, rather than in the cars – as does Lil’ Mago, who has commandeered Casper and Smiley along to rob immigrants.

When day breaks, Lil’ Mago makes his move and Casper in turn makes a fateful decision. Casper must now navigate the psychological gauntlet of his violent existence and the physical one of the unforgiving Mara, but Sayra bravely allies herself with him as the train journeys through the Mexican countryside towards the hope of new lives.

A newsman intentionally frames himself for a murder he didn't commit in order to point out the dangers of circumstantial evidence and to expose an overzealous district attorney who has manipulated evidence in the past to gain convictions. Everything is going as planned until his friend, the one person who can exonerate him, is killed.

When a decorated Marine goes missing overseas, his black-sheep younger brother cares for his wife and children at home—with consequences that will shake the foundation of the entire family.

“Brothers” tells the powerful story of two siblings, thirty-something Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) and younger brother Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal), who are polar opposites. A Marine about to embark on his fourth tour of duty, Sam is a steadfast family man married to his high school sweetheart, the aptly named Grace (Natalie Portman), with whom he has two young daughters (Bailee Madison, Taylor Grace Geare). Tommy, his charismatic younger brother, is a drifter just out of jail who’s always gotten by on wit and charm. He slides easily into his role as family provocateur on his first night out of prison, at Sam’s farewell dinner with their parents, Elsie (Mare Winningham) and Hank Cahill (Sam Shepard), a retired Marine.

Shipped out to Afghanistan, Sam is presumed dead when his Black Hawk helicopter is shot down in the mountains. At home in suburbia, the Cahill family suddenly faces a shocking void, and Tommy tries to fill in for his brother by assuming newfound responsibility for himself, Grace, and the children.

But Sam is not dead; he and a fellow soldier have been captured by Taliban fighters. In Afghanistan’s harsh, remote Pamir Mountains, Sam is subjected to traumas that threaten to rob him of his very humanity. At the same time that Sam’s sense of self is being destroyed overseas, Tommy’s self-image is strengthening at home. And in the grief and strangeness of their new lives, Grace and Tommy are naturally drawn together. Their longstanding frostiness dissolves, but both are ashamed of the mutual attraction that has replaced it.

When Sam unexpectedly returns to the States, a nervous mood settles over the family. Sam, uncharacteristically withdrawn and volatile, grows suspicious of his brother and his wife. Their familiar roles now nearly reversed, Sam and Tommy end up facing the ultimate physical and mental challenge when they confront each other. In the shifting family dynamics, who will dominate? And how will the brothers come to terms with issues of love, loyalty, and manhood—and with the woman caught between them?

The faith-themed drama revolves around a couple whose strength and faith are tested after the wife is injured in a car crash and the husband becomes attracted to another woman.

The story centers on pilot Amelia Earhart in the early stages of her career and how she is chosen to be the first female pilot to attempt the daring nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

A widower writes a book about grieving that turns him into a phenomenon. Reinvented as a charismatic self-help guru, he falls for a woman at a seminar and is forced to confront the fact that he hasn't come to grips with his own loss.

"Taken" stars Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills, an ex-government operative who has less than four days to find his kidnapped daughter, who has been taken on her first day of vacation in Paris.

The love story focuses on a couple in which the man has a genetic disorder known as "chrono-impairment," a condition that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. Jeremy Leven wrote the adaptation.

The boy and the girl in "Adam" are no ordinary characters, and their romance is anything but familiar. Soon after moving in, Beth, a brainy, beautiful writer damaged from a past relationship encounters Adam, the handsome, but odd, fellow in the downstairs apartment whose awkwardness is perplexing. Beth and Adam's ultimate connection leads to a tricky relationship that exemplifies something universal: truly reaching another person means bravely stretching into uncomfortable territory and the resulting shake-up can be liberating.

"Nine," based on the Tony Award Winning Broadway musical and inspired by Fellini's classic film "8 1/2," stars Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will be Blood") as world famous film director Guido Contini as he prepares his latest picture and balances the numerous women in his life. Contini's wife "Luisa Contini" is played by Cotillard, his sultry mistress "Carla" by Cruz, Kidman stars as his film star muse "Claudia Graham," Judi Dench plays the role of "Lily" - his confidant and costume designer, Sophia Loren is his mother or "Mamma" and Hudson plays "Stephanie" the young American fashion journalist.

When Katie, an ordinary woman, meets Paco, an ordinary man, something magical happens: a love story. From this union an extraordinary child is born: Ricky.

Casey Bell (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual advisor, Sendak (Gary Oldman), who can make it stop.

With Sendak's help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany—a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything that is getting stronger with each possession. With the curse unleashed, her only chance at survival is to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born.

Oscar® winner Julia Roberts and Clive Owen reunite for "Duplicity," from writer/director Tony Gilroy (seven-time Oscar®-nominated "Michael Clayton"). In the film, they star as spies-turned-corporate operatives in the midst of a clandestine love affair. When they find themselves embroiled in a high-stakes espionage game, they discover the toughest part of the job is deciding how much to trust the one you love.

CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) have left the world of government intelligence to cash in on the highly profitable cold war raging between two rival multinational corporations. Their mission? Secure the formula for a product that will bring a fortune to the company that patents it first.

For their employers—industry titan Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and buccaneer CEO Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti)— nothing is out of bounds. But as the stakes rise, the mystery deepens and the tactics get dirtier, the trickiest secret for Claire and Ray is their growing attraction. And as they each try to stay one double-cross ahead, two career loners find their schemes endangered by the only thing they can't cheat their way out of: love.

What if someone gave you a box containing a button that, if pushed, would bring you a million dollars...but simultaneously take the life of someone you don't know? Would you do it? And what would be the consequences? The year is 1976. Norma Lewis is a teacher at a private high school and her husband, Arthur, is an engineer working at NASA. They are, by all accounts, an average couple living a normal life in the suburbs with their young son...until a mysterious man with a horribly disfigured face appears on their doorstep and presents Norma with a life-altering proposition: the box. With only 24 hours to make their choice, Norma and Arthur face an impossible moral dilemma. What they don't realize is that no matter what they decide, terrifying consequences will have already been set in motion. They soon discover that the ramifications of this decision are beyond their control and extend far beyond their own fortune and fate.

The film revolves around a British sargeant stationed in Palestine after World War II and his relationship with an 11-year-old, who wants the British to leave his land.

In this heartwarming comedy, minor leaguer Carlton Garrett (Justin Timberlake) takes an unexpected road trip to track down his estranged father, legendary baseball player Kyle Garrett (Jeff Bridges) when Carlton’s mother (Mary Steenburgen) becomes sick. Knowing his charming yet painfully immature dad’s likelihood to disappoint, Carlton enlists his on-again-off-again girlfriend Lucy (Kate Mara) for emotional support. Once reunited, Carlton struggles to deal with the series of misadventures caused by his father’s antics, including missed flights, car trouble and bathroom brawls. Years of miscommunication, frustration and comically awkward attempts at bonding come to a head as the mismatched trio make their way from Ohio back home to Houston to reunite the family.

"An Education" is the story of a teenage girl's coming-of-age set in 1961 London, a city caught between the drab, post-war 1950s and the glamorous, more liberated decade to come. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) stands on the brink of becoming a woman: a brilliantly witty and attractive 16-year-old whose suburban life is about to be blown apart by the utterly unsuitable 30-something David (Peter Sarsgaard). Urbane and witty, David manages to charm her conservative parents Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour). David introduces Jenny to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late-night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny's girlfriend, the beautiful but vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike). Just as Jenny's family's long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life.

"Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant", based on the popular series of books by Darren Shan, is a fantasy-adventure about a teenager who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Pulled into a fantastic life of misunderstood sideshow freaks and grotesque creatures of the night, one teen will vanish from the safety of a boring existence and fulfill his destiny in a place drawn from nightmares.

16-year-old Darren (Chris Massoglia) was like most kids in his suburban neighborhood. He hung out with his best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson), got decent grades and usually stayed out of trouble. But when he and his buddy stumble upon a traveling freak show, things begin to change inside Darren. That’s the exact moment when a vampire named Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly) turns him into something, well, bloodthirsty.

Newly undead, he joins the Cirque Du Freak, a touring sideshow filled with monstrous creatures from a snakeboy and a wolfman to a bearded lady (Salma Hayek) and a gigantic barker (Ken Watanabe). As Darren flexes his newfound powers in this dark world, he becomes a treasured pawn between the vampires and their deadlier counterparts. And while trying to survive, one boy will struggle to keep their brewing war from devouring what’s left of his humanity.