Browse Movies : 2003 : Drama : "new york"

April Burns (Katie Holmes) is a 21-year-old wild child with a very big problem. Against her better judgment, she's invited her straightlaced family for Thanksgiving dinner. Her boyfriend, Bobby, wants to help, but she banishes him from the apartment while she attempts to cook the meal. To make matters worse, she then discovers that her oven doesn't work. So, while April is forced to ask her eccentric neighbors for help in cooking her fifteen pound turkey, the Burns Family begins a reluctant journey from suburban Pennsylvania toward New York City's Lower East Side. April's Dad, Jim Burns (Oliver Platt) tries to convince the family that the day will be beautiful. Her mom, Joy (Patricia Clarkson) has her doubts and freely voices them. April's teenage sister and brother are squeezed between Grandma Dottie and a bag of snacks in the back seat as the Burns' family car hurtles toward Manhattan and what will most likely be certain disaster.

Victor Vargas (Victor Rasuk), a 16-year-old Dominican boy growing up on New York's Lower East Side, finds his self-image as a burgeoning ladies man deflated when the neighborhood finds out that he's dating an unpopular and overweight girl (Donna Maldonado) who lives two stories above his grandmother's apartment (where he lives, along with his brother and sister). So, he sets his sights on the most beautiful girl at the local swimming pool, "Juicy" Judy Rodriguez (Judy Marte).

Set shortly after World War II in Berlin, this is the story of an American officer's (Harvey Keitel) prosecution of German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgard) as part of the Allied Forces' de-Nazification trials. As the investigation progresses, the American, wanting to convict a man he sees as a Jew-killing Nazi is brought face-to-face into conflict with a man consumed entirely by his art, not politics.

Posey plays a district attorney in New York investigating a series of unexplained deaths in the gay community. As she digs deeper, she discovers some shocking facts behind the cases.

In the Latino neighborhood of New York City's Washington Heights, two sons of immigrants -- one Dominican, one Irish, wrestle with ambition and identity, only to discover that sometimes pursuing one's dreams comes at a heavy cost. Carlos (Manny Perez), 28, lives in the Heights, where his father Eddie (Milían) runs a bodega. He works in the East Village as an inker for comic books, but is developing his own project, something he hopes to sell to a well-known publisher. Mickey (Hoch) is the sweet-natured superintendent of their building, a man whose loopy dreams of becoming a professional bowler are met with only derision by his father, Sean (Jude Ciccolella). Both Carlos and Mickey are burning with desire to get out of the Heights. Unlike their sons, Eddie and Sean are immigrants or children of immigrants who have made their peace with their unfulfilled dreams. Like Carlos and Mickey, the two are best friends and Sean has made the mistake of lending Eddie $25,000 to cover his profligate spending. When Eddie is injured during a robbery, Sean convinces Carlos to take over the store and protect his investment. For Carlos -- who has been challenged by his mentor to rework a superficial comic strip into something of substance -- running the store is the last thing on his mind. Nevertheless, he puts his artistic aspirations on hold to take over the store and care for his father. Together they work through their mutual mistrust and grief over the death of Carlos' mother. Through it all, Carlos comes to understand that if he is to make it as an artist, he must engage with the community he comes from and take that experience back out into the world by putting it in his work.

A phone call can change your life, but for one man it can also end it. Set entirely within and around the confines of a New York City phone booth, "Phone Booth" follows a slick media consultant (Colin Farrell) who is trapped after being told by a caller - a serial killer with a sniper rifle - that he'll be shot dead if he hangs up.

Based on Anne Nelson's original plays, this is the story of a fire captain who lost eight men in the collapse of the World Trade Center and the editor who helps him prepare the eulogies he must deliver. A portion of the film's proceeds will be set aside to benefit the families of New York City firefighters.

A moving documentary from director Jennifer Dworkin, "Love and Diane" tells the hard tale of Diane, whose crack cocaine drug addiction in the 1980s resulted in social services taking each of her six children out of her care for more stable lives in foster homes and group homes. Now Diane is clean, and the oldest of her children, Love, is 18-years-old, HIV positive, and has a baby boy. Diane tries to reunite the family, which consists of five teenagers (one of her sons died), but life for them is not easy. At the beginning of the film they are all living together in a Brooklyn, New York apartment. But slowly things go awry. Diane and Love quarrel and social services comes to take the baby away. Neglect charges are filed against Love and social services separates her sisters into another living situation. Their younger brother stops going to school and then also leaves the apartment, no longer interested in living with his mother or with his family. A moving and emotional look at a family struggling against difficult odds to do what's best, LOVE & DIANE is mostly made up of conversations between Diane, Love, and the family. They talk about the hardships they've endured, how they got through difficult times, and how they pray for a brighter future. All combined, it is a truly affecting portrait of a family trying to keep together.

Based very loosely on the Alan Moore graphic novel epic of the same name, this is the story of a group of characters drawn from famous works of literature, including Captain Nemo, Allan Quatermain, The Invisible Man, Mina Murray and Dr. Jekyll, banding together to combat criminal undertakings of the highest order near the turn of the 19th century. Rather than remain true to the comic roots, the film also incorporates Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray, in an apparent effort to keep the cast from being entirely without Americans, and it is set in New York.

"Chasing Papi" revolves around three disparate women - a buttoned down lawyer from Chicago, a Miami cocktail waitress, and a wealthy, sheltered New Yorker - who discover they have something in common: the irresistible lothario who has been three-timing them. They decide to teach their "papi chulo" a lesson, but instead end up on a wild adventure of their own, which takes them to a beauty pageant, a dance festival, and into some dangerous run-ins with a pair of shady characters.

This movie tells two stories in three settings, going back and forth between each story as the film proceeds. One is the story of two cowboy brothers (Joseph Fiennes, David Wenham) who worked as mercenaries in Turkey around the turn of the century, and fall in love with the same woman (Anne Brochet). The other is set in contemporary New York, and is about a 90-year-old woman with a secret horde of Balkan gold and a thief (Adrian Lester), who surprisingly become friends. The third setting is the Ottoman Empire, circa 1913.

Based on the best-selling novel by Susanna Moore, "In the Cut" is a psychological thriller starring Meg Ryan and directed by Jane Campion. Ryan plays a lonely New York woman who discovers the darker side of passion after becoming involved with a tough homicide detective, who is investigating a series of murders in her neighborhood.

With their two young daughters in tow, Johnny and Sarah emigrate from Ireland to New York City in pursuit of a dream. The family uses ingenuity and sheer strength of will to make the most of their new life. Ultimately it is their kindness to a stranger and that stranger's response in return that builds their new home.