Drama Movies 2003 List

With Gus Van Sant • Matt Malloy • Alex Frost • John Robinson • Timothy Bottoms • Eric Deulen • Elias McConnell • Dany Wolf • Bill Robinson

Based partially on the shootings at Columbine High School, writer-director Gus Van Sant presents "Elephant", which takes place during one day at a typical American high school. Following ten kids in their daily activities, an atmosphere of violence and lawlessness becomes brutally evident as tension mounts, leading to a tragic event.

With Jon Favreau • Sean Bean • Rachael Leigh Cook • Kelsey Grammer • Daryl Hannah • Joey Lauren Adams • Adam Beach • Steve Anderson

John Person (Jon Favreau), a struggling actor on the verge of eviction from his Hollywood studio apartment, goes against his better judgement -- and that of his pretty neighbor Grace (Joey Lauren Adams) -- and accepts an offer from his strange neighbor Neely (Bud Cort) to courier a blue suitcase up to the desert truck stop of Baker, California. His instructions are simple: deliver the suitcase to a trucker called Cowboy (Sean Bean) and collect $27 thousand. Oh yeah, and he has to defend the suitcase with his life. Naturally, nothing goes according to plan once John arrives. The Cowboy is nowhere to be found, John meets with some kooky alien-obsessed locals and Special Agent Banks (Kelsey Grammer) questions John about the mysterious decapitation of Neely and about other missing persons. When the final showdown approaches, John is faced with a choice that could change his life forever. Has the whole town gone mad? Or are the loony locals, who he dismissed as crazy, the only sane ones in this strange parallel universe called The Big Empty?

With Russell Crowe • Paul Bettany • David Threlfall • Billy Boyd • John Collee • John DeSantis • Peter Weir • Ian Mercer • Patrick Gallagher • Richard McCabe • Robert Pugh • Samuel Goldwyn • Duncan Henderson

Russell Crowe is Lucky Jack Aubrey, the Navy's greatest fighting captain and Paul Bettany is ship's doctor Stephen Maturin. The ship, the Surprise, is suddenly attacked by a superior enemy. With the Surprise badly damaged and much of his crew injured, Aubrey – the "Master" of the Surprise and "Commander" of his men – is torn between duty and friendship as he sets sail in a high-stakes chase across two oceans, to the far side of the world, to intercept and capture their foe. It's a mission that can decide the fate of a nation – or destroy Lucky Jack and his crew. The film is based on the narrative outline of the tenth book in Patrick O'Brian's legendary "Aubrey/Maturin" series of high seas novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars.

With Paul Mazursky • Shirley Knight • Rebecca Staab • Henry Rollins • Jack Conley • Laura San Giacomo • Phillip Baker Hall • James Karen • Daphna Kastner • Charles Lucia • Domenica Scorses • Darryl E. Smith • Robert Harders • Chuck Workman

Harry Mayfield (Baker Hall) was once an extremely successful Los Angeles architect. Today, he is an aging, charming but cantankerous idealist who teaches rather than practices architecture. Decades earlier, he had started work on a magnificent house for his family on a hillside site overlooking the city and the sea. A rich young couple, Kate and Richard Banks, see the charred remains of what was once his house, and decide they want Mayfield to come out of retirement and re-build the house for them. Mayfield, flattered by the attention and attracted by the challenge, agrees. Kate hires him to redesign the house and asks a young Hollywood friend, Gaby (Sangiacomo), to make a documentary record, a film of the building of the house. She learns that Mayfield's work made considerable impact on his colleagues and experts in the field, but for some reason he never achieved great public fame. The house was not finished, and the incidents surrounding its failure to be completed caused the tragic death of his young son, and possibly the end of his career. Mayfield works hard to make a new design. After getting it approved by Kate he starts construction with the contractor he has hired to rebuild the house.

With Benicio Del Toro • Sean Penn • Naomi Watts • Danny Huston • Eddie Marsan • Melissa Leo • Clea DuVall • Charlotte Gainsbourg • Teresa Delgado • Marc Musso

From the Mexican writing-directing team behind the Oscar-nominated "Amores Perros" comes this explosive, emotionally charged English-language drama about a woman (Naomi Watts), her cheating lover (Sean Penn), and an ex-convict (Benicio Del Toro).

With Markita Boies • Toni Checchinato • Marie-Josee Croze • Sophie Lorain • Remy Girard • Dominique Michel • Louise Portal • Yves Jacques • Pierre Curzi • Dorothee Berryman • Isabelle Blais • Denis Bouchard • Yves Desgagnes • Sylvie Drapeau • Roy Dupuis • Mitsou Gelinas • Micheline Lanctot

A revisiting, some 15 years later, of the principal characters of Denys Arcand's 1986 comedy drama film, "The Decline of the American Empire". Rémy, now divorced and in his early fifties, is hospitalized. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their son Sébastien to come home from London where he now lives. Sébastien hesitates; he and his father haven't had much to say to one another for years now. He relents, however, and flies to Montreal to help his mother and support his father. As soon as he arrives, Sébastien moves heaven and earth, brings his contacts into play and disrupts the system in every way possible to ease the ordeal that awaits Rémy. Around his father's bedside, Sébastien also reunites the merry band of folk who were all players in Rémy's complicated past: relatives, friends and former mistresses.

With Bo-Lin Chen • Lun-Mei Guey • Joanna Chou • Shu-Hui Liang • Ming-Gin Cheng • Chin-Yen Yee

In this romantic triangle teen drama set in modern Taipei, high school students Ke-Rou (Lun-Mei Guey) and Yueh-Chen (Shu-Hui Liang) are best friends. When Yueh-Chen asks Ke-Rou to approach a boy, Shih-Hao (Bo-Lin Chen) that she has a crush on (but is too shy to ask), Shih-Hao unexpectedly asks Ke-Rou out instead. She excepts, but with a warning, because she has a secret: she thinks she might be a lesbian because she's actually in love with Yueh-Chen. Going out with Shih-Hao, however, is her chance to test herself to see if she is, or if she isn't...

With Lisa Lu • Vivian Wu • Chin Han • Anna Chi

Set in Los Angeles at home of the middle-class Hong family, a drama thriller in which many layers of deception in a bi-cultural clan are unraveled--upon the arrival of an intruder brandishing a gun.

With Djimon Hounsou • Paddy Considine • Sarah Bolger • Samantha Morton • Emma Bolger • Jim Sheridan • Kirsten Sheridan • Nye Heron • Arthur Lappin • Paul Myler • Naomi Sheridan

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.