Drama Movies 2006 List

With Robin Williams • Rory Culkin • Toni Collette • Bobby Cannavale • Jeff Sharp • John Hart • Joe Morton • John Cullum • Rodrigo Lopresti • Patrick Stettner • Robert Kessel • Jill Footlick • Armistead Maupin • Terry Anderson

Directed and co-written by Patrick Stettner, "Night Listener", tackles the narrative of Armistead Maupin's most haunting page-turner, in which popular public radio storyteller Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) develops an intense phone relationship with a young listener named Pete (Rory Culkin) and the social worker who rescued him from a life of abuse (Toni Collette). But Gabriel soon comes to the startling realization that it is quite possible that neither the boy nor his painful account of his childhood really exist.

With Danny DeVito • Parker Posey • David Arquette • Mischa Barton • Billy Kent • Adam Wierzbianski

Priscilla Chase seemed to have everything going for her with one small private exception... She never thought much of sex. When her husband unexpectedly leaves her to regain his manhood she embarks on a wild journey that leads her to satisfaction and love in the most unlikely place.

With William H. Macy • Joe Mantegna • Julia Stiles • Bai Ling • Dylan Walsh • Maria Conchita Alonzo • David Mamet • Tom Sizemore • Rebecca Pidgeon • Stuart Gordon

New York City resident Edmond Burke (William H. Macy) encounters a fortuneteller, whose predictions throw him for a loop and lead him to abandon his previous life, wandering into the dark side of the city.

With Morgan Freeman • Justin Timberlake • Kevin Spacey • Cary Elwes • Dylan McDermott • Piper Perabo • LL Cool J • John Heard • David Burke

In "Edison", a young journalist (Justin Timberlake) uncovers an elite unit of corrupt cops. Realizing that he's over his head, he makes an uneasy alliance with a burnt-out reporter (Morgan Freeman) and the DA's ace investigator (Kevin Spacey).

With Paul Giamatti • Bryce Dallas Howard • Bob Balaban • M. Night Shyamalan • Jeffrey Wright • Sarita Choudhury • Cindy Cheung • Freddy Rodriguez • Mary Beth Hurt • Sam Mercer

In "Lady in the Water", a story originally conceived by Shyamalan for his children, a modest building manager named Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) rescues a mysterious young woman (Bryce Dallas Howard) from danger and discovers she is actually a narf, a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. Cleveland and his fellow tenants start to realize that they are also characters in this bedtime story. As Cleveland falls deeper and deeper in love with the woman, he works together with the tenants to protect his new fragile friend from the deadly creatures that reside in this fable and are determined to prevent her from returning home.

With Robert Downey Jr. • George Clooney • Keanu Reeves • Winona Ryder • Woody Harrelson • Steven Soderbergh • Richard Linklater • Rory Cochran • Philip K. Dick

Set in the future, "A Scanner Darkly" follows an undercover agent, Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), who can change his face and identity. But when he ingests too much of the drug Substance D, his personality splits in two.

With Jamie Foxx • Colin Farrell • Danny Trejo • Michael Mann • Naomie Harris • Wes Studi • Gong Li • Pieter Jan Brugge • Anthony Yerkovich

The cocaine cowboys of the '80s are gone, but Miami's Casablanca allure, the undercover cops and the attitudes of Michael Mann's culturally influential television series have been enhanced by time in the feature film version of Miami Vice.

Ricardo Tubbs (Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx of "Ray", "Jarhead") is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born intel analyst Trudy, played by British actress Naomie Harris ("28 Days Later"), as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders.

Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell of "S.W.A.T.", "The New World") ]to the untrained eye, his presentation may seem unorthodox, but procedurally he is sound] is charismatic and flirtatious until-while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group-he gets romantically entangled with Isabella, the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker. Isabella is played by the Chinese actress Gong Li ("Raise the Red Lantern, Memoirs of a Geisha").

The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of this case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one- especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves.

"Miami Vice", as a large-scale feature film, liberates what is adult, dangerous and alluring about working deeply undercover...especially when Crockett and Tubbs go to where their badges don't count...