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Curated playlist

English-language drama films

  • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the KingThe Return of the King won all eleven Oscars it was nominated for. No fantasy film had won Best Picture before it.
  • Othello (1951 film)Orson Welles's Othello nearly died within days of shooting in 1949 when its producer went bankrupt.
  • Ben-Hur (1959 film)MGM bet its future on Ben-Hur, a 1959 epic whose budget more than doubled to $15.175 million.
  • Apollo 11 (1996 film)Buzz Aldrin filmed a cameo in a 1996 Apollo 11 movie, then it was cut. He played a clergyman.
  • There Will Be BloodThere Will Be Blood is a 2007 American epic period drama written, directed and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. It closes with a boast about a milkshake: "I drink your milkshake!" The line sounds absurd in a film about drilling for…
  • The Cat ReturnsThe Cat Returns began as a 20-minute short for a theme park that canceled it. Ghibli made it a feature.
  • Hamlet (1948 film)Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of Hamlet split its first audiences down the middle. The critic Milton Shulman, writing in The Evening Standard, put it this way: "To some it will be one of the greatest films ever made, to others a deep…
  • Citizen KaneOrson Welles began filming Citizen Kane without telling his studio. He logged the early footage as "Orson Welles Tests."
  • Life in a Day (2011 film)Life in a Day was cut from 80,000 clips sent in by people in 192 nations. The 2011 film ran 94 minutes.
  • Ordinary PeopleMichael J. Fox auditioned for Ordinary People and lost the role to Timothy Hutton. Hutton won an Oscar for it at age 20.

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