Browse Movies : 2006 : Drama

Dan Dunne is an idealistic inner-city junior high school teacher. Although he can get it together in the classroom, he spends his time outside school on the edge of consciousness. He juggles his hangovers and his homework, keeping his lives precariously separated, until one of his troubled students, Drey, catches him in a compromising situation. From this awkward beginning, Dan and Drey stumble into an unexpected friendship that threatens either to undo them, or to provide the vital change they both need to move forward in their lives.

"Down in the Valley", which stars Academy Award Nominee Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood, is a suspenseful crime story set at the edge of the San Fernando Valley, a seedy place of horse ranches and immigrant gangs, where ten-lane freeways converge to create a cultural no man's land. A rebellious high school senior Tobe (Wood) and her anemic 11-year old brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin) struggle to escape their grim and hopeless existence and their overbearing father, Wade (David Moorse). Their hoped-for deliverance comes in the form of Harlan, a charming, yet mercurial man (Norton) who thinks he's a cowboy.

Denzel Washington stars as New York police detective Keith Miller, a tough, street-smart cop fighting for a promotion while trying to live down accusations of misconduct connected to his last case. When he and his partner are dispatched to the scene of an in-progress bank robbery and hostage crisis, Miller must face off against a well-educated criminal (Owen) masterminding a concisely plotted operation. As negotiations grow more strained, a powerful lawyer with mysterious ties (Foster) becomes involved in the crisis... and Miller slowly begins to realize that in this ultimate game of cat and mouse, rules are arbitrary, all roles are up for grabs and the black-and-white of right an wrong has blurred to a shadowy landscape of gray.

Ray Keene (Cusack), a father who wants to redeem himself in the eyes of his son, is trying to bring Cordell (Freeman), a world-class assassin to justice. All the while, he must protect his son and evade the assassin's team who are methodically hunting them down in the wilderness.

When a colleague is murdered, Secret Service agent Pete Garrison is put in charge of the investigation. But Garrison himself becomes a suspect after he is blackmailed by someone who knows of his affair with the first lady. Stripped of his duties and now a fugitive, Garrison races to prove his innocence and save the president's life.

The story centers on the two-year period of Mary and Joseph's life, culminating in their leaving Nazareth and journeying 100 miles to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. Key characters and events such as King Herod, John the Baptist's parents (Zachariah and Elizabeth), the shepherds who were witness to Jesus' birth; and the arrival of the three kings from the Orient will be fleshed out.

An unflinching drama that tells the story of the passengers and crew, their families on the ground and the flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines Flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001.

Noah Cruise, a naturally talented basketball player, is determined to become a doctor using his basketball scholarship to UCLA pre-med, rather than succumbing to the lure of a former sports agent Vaughn, and his push for Noah to go for the NBA. Noah's best friend, Tech, the buddy that covered for him and did time for an assault charge, is also an outstanding basketball player, but has less lofty ambitions--he wants to get his GED and win an underground street ball game against an arrogant rival, Jewelz. Noah and Tech's lives drastically change when they both fall in love with two local girls, Vanessa Lilly and Eboni Jackson, and take a fateful trip out to L.A. together.

Set in the turbulent late 1960s and early '70s, "Dreamgirls" follows the rise of a trio of women)—Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose)—who have formed a promising girl group called The Dreamettes. At a talent competition, they are discovered by an ambitious manager named Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who offers them the opportunity of a lifetime: to become the back-up singers for headliner James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy). Curtis gradually takes control of the girls' look and sound, eventually giving them their own shot in the spotlight as The Dreams. That spotlight, however, begins to narrow in on Deena, finally pushing the less attractive Effie out altogether. Though the Dreams become a cross-over phenomenon, they soon realize that the cost of fame and fortune may be higher than they ever imagined.

A sports drama inspired by a true story about a man who had nothing to lose, and pushed to make his dreams come true. When the coach of Vince Papale's beloved hometown football team hosted an unprecedented open tryout, the public consensus was that it was a waste of time--no one good enough to play professional football was going to be found this way. Certainly no one like Papale--a down-on-his-luck, 30-year-old, substitute teacher and part-time bartender who never even played college football. But against these odds, Papale made the team and soon found himself living every fan's fantasy--moving from his cheap seats in the upper deck to standing on the field as a professional football player.

Based on the life of Chris Gardner, a self-made millionaire, this untitled project will star Will Smith as a man who finds himself jobless and homeless at age 30, living in a San Francisco train station with his infant son. Determined to beat the odds, he finds work as a trainee at a brokerage and climbs the corporate ladder, eventually becoming partner and owner of his own Chicago-based firm.

From Academy Award winning filmmaker Mel Gibson, comes "Apocalypto" a heart stopping mythic action-adventure set against the turbulent end times of the once great Mayan civilization. When his idyllic existence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, a man is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

"Bobby" revisits the night Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. Story is about how the lives of those at the hotel that evening intersected. Movie will take place against the backdrop of the cultural issues gripping the country at the time, including racism, sexual inequality and class differences.

The Battle of Iwo Jima, which took place in the winter of 1945, was a turning point in the Pacific Theater. In one month, 22,000 Japanese and 26,000 Americans died, and the battle produced one of World War II's most enduring images: a photograph of U.S. servicemen raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.

How far would you go to live your dream? When Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) is given the chance of a lifetime, he must leave his family, his life in Los Angeles and everything that he knows to travel halfway around the globe to England and into a completely foreign world -- the exciting, fast-paced and glamorous world of international soccer.

As an underprivileged Mexican-American immigrant growing up in the poor section of Los Angeles, Santiago seemed destined to follow his father's path in life: laboring at menial jobs to earn just enough money to support his family. Naturally gifted, his amazing talent on the soccer field was wasted in recreation league games while he could only dream of playing on the world stage of professional soccer. But when a British scout (Stephen Dillane) discovers his talent and gets him a tryout with one of England's premier soccer clubs, Newcastle United, Santiago must choose between his father's fate and his own destiny.

Now alone in a world where soccer is a religion and players are gods, this underdog must prove that he's got the talent and determination to make it amongst the best in the world.

Set amidst the backdrop of a 1930s southern speakeasy, the film follows two characters, Percival (Andre Benjamin), the club's piano player, and Rooster (Antwan Patton), the club's lead performer and manager, through intersecting stories of love and ambition.

A suburban town is full of perfect parents who are fully devoted to rearing their children for Harvard futures and keeping them safe from predators. The adults escape the excruciatingly bore-fests their lives have become via Internet porn and extramarital affairs. A stay-at-home mom has an affair with an ex-jock stay-at-home dad who rebels against his wife's wishes that he become a big-bucks lawyer.

Based on Augusten Burroughs' best-selling memoir, the story follows Deirdre Burroughs (Annette Bening), a 1970s poet with bipolar disorder. Her instability after a messy divorce leads her to send her 12-year-old son to live with an unusual psychiatrist and his eccentric family.

The film is about a man who believes that he left behind his family's ties to organized crime, only to find that easier said than done upon returning to Philadelphia. It was inspired by the real life experiences of Joseph Pistone, the FBI agent otherwise known as Donnie Brasco.

A heart-warming, triumph-over adversity drama, "Akeelah and the Bee" centers on a precocious eleven-year-old girl, Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer), from south Los Angeles, who is discovered to have a talent for words. In spite of the objections of her mother Wanda (Angela Bassett), Akeelah enters a spelling contest. Her gift takes her to compete in the National Spelling Bee, the most famous competition of its kind in the world. On the way, she is helped by a forthright, mysterious teacher, Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne) and a cast of colorful characters from the community. Her journey evokes pride in the neighborhood, bringing them together and, in the end, all witness the courage and inspiration of one amazing little girl.