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Best Drama Movies With Friends On A Friday That Will Keep You On The Edge Of Your Seat

These drama picks were hand-selected for a Friday night with friends, not pulled from a popularity chart. Every pick is chosen for emotional and situational fit, not streaming popularity or critic scores.

The best drama movies with friends on a friday that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Includes The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Godfather P...

For a Friday with friends, you need a film that doesn't require perfect silence to work. Something engaging enough that it holds attention even in a room with people in it.

A great drama earns every emotion it asks of you. Nothing is unearned. Nothing is manipulated. You feel it because the film has made you care.

The Shawshank Redemption movie poster
1
1994 · ★★★★½ 8.7/10

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

The Godfather movie poster
2
1972 · ★★★★½ 8.7/10

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

The Godfather Part II movie poster
3
1974 · ★★★★½ 8.6/10

In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.

Schindler's List movie poster
4
1993 · ★★★★½ 8.6/10

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

12 Angry Men movie poster
5
1957 · ★★★★½ 8.6/10

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.

The dramas worth your time are the ones that don't resolve too neatly. Life doesn't tie itself off, and neither do these films.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge movie poster
6
1995 · ★★★★½ 8.5/10

Raj is a rich, carefree, happy-go-lucky second generation NRI. Simran is the daughter of Chaudhary Baldev Singh, who in spite of being an NRI is very strict about adherence to Indian values. Simran has left for India to be married to her childhood fiancé. Raj leaves for India with a mission at his hands, to claim his lady love under the noses of her whole family. Thus begins a saga.

The Green Mile movie poster
7
1999 · ★★★★½ 8.5/10

A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.

Parasite movie poster
8
2019 · ★★★★½ 8.5/10

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

Your Name. movie poster
9
2016 · ★★★★½ 8.5/10

High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki's body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other.

Interstellar movie poster
10
2014 · ★★★★½ 8.5/10

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Tension is a byproduct of investment. You're only on the edge of your seat if the film has made you care first. These do.

The best dramas don't tell you how to feel. They create conditions in which you can't help feeling — deeply, and without warning.

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