Generally serious films that portray realistic stories and characters
Featured Works
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - 1975 Oscar-winning movie starring Jack Nicholson and directed by Milos Forman
Notable Works
- Amistad - 1997 Steven Spielberg movie about the slave trade in the early 19th century
- Bridge on the River Kwai, The - 1957 Oscar-winning movie starring Alec Guiness and William Holden
- Casablanca - 1942 Oscar-winning movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman
- Cool Hand Luke - 1967 movie about a nonconformist in a prison chain gang
- Dead Poets Society - 1989 movie about a teacher who inspires his students to seize the day
- Farewell My Concubine - 1993 Chinese film recounting the life of two Beijing Opera performers
- Fountainhead, The - 1949 movie based on Ayn Rand's novel about architect Howard Roark
- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - 1967 Stanley Kramer movie about interracial marriage
- Killing Fields, The - 1984 historical drama about the Khmer Rouge regime
- Man for All Seasons, A - 1966 historical drama recounting the story of how Sir Thomas More stood up to King Henry VIII
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - 1939 American dramatic film, Oscar-nominated and winner for Original Story
- Network - 1976 movie, famous for the line "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore"
- Official Story, The - 1985 movie about an Argentine mother discovering her adopted daughter may be the child of a "desaparecida"
- Paths of Glory - 1957 Stanley Kubrick film starring Kirk Douglas, set in France during World War I
- Shenandoah - 1965 movie about life in the middle of the American War Between the States
- Tailor of Panama, The - 2001 film based on the John le Carré spy novel
- To Kill a Mockingbird - 1962 movie, based on Harper Lee's novel, about Atticus Finch
- To Live - 1994 Zhang Yimou film telling the struggles of a Chinese family from the 1940s through the Cultural Revolution
- V for Vendetta - 2006 movie about a Fawkesian anarchist battling a police state in a near-future United Kingdom