5 Best Movies Like The Drama

Now that "The Drama" is available to stream at home, more are realizing that this surprise indie hit is one of the year's best so far; a provocative gem that never feels needlessly edgy. That's due to an ensemble cast with no weak links, and a screenplay which dives far beyond the surface to explore highly charged subject matter, even as it sees the funny side of it all. In a just world, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson would be riding the hype of their performances all year to earn Oscar nominations in early 2027. 

The lack of outrage "The Drama" caused, despite exploring America's relationship to gun culture, is a positive sign that audiences are more open than ever to darker stories, which should hopefully inspire any filmmaker with a nihilistic idea in their drafts. But before those hypothetical movies are given the green light, there are plenty of stories like "The Drama" already out there that are worth your time. 

Be warned, most of our recommendations here will make that film look like cozy comfort viewing. These are the best movies for anybody willing to branch further out of their comfort zone, with jet-black romcoms, upsetting social satires and suffocating relationship dramas. They're not for the faint of heart, but are rewarding for anybody eager to journey further into the dark side of the movies. And if these whet your appetite for more dark tales, we've also compiled a list of essential dark comedies here.

If you liked the premise of "The Drama," where the fallout comes from revealing the darkest secret in a relationship, and you think it could have gone even darker, 2006's "Sleeping Dogs Lie" from writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait is for you. Contemplating carrying out a horror and only deciding against it at the last minute is one thing, but Amy (Melinda Page Hamilton) has a weirder skeleton in her closet: when she was a teenager, she performed oral sex on the family dog.

It's a secret she's naturally kept to herself into adulthood, but after her partner John (Bryce Johnson) won't stop hassling her to reveal something he knows is burdening her, she spills all. Unfortunately, her brother overhears, and as he outs this revelation to others, it causes seemingly irreparable damage to all her relationships.

It's a similar elevator pitch to "The Drama" but also makes it appear tame in comparison. This ultra-low-budget affair also hides a surprising amount of sweetness beneath the surface, probing whether relationships can be strong enough to withstand certain lies with a mix of earnestness and lowbrow humor. It's a romcom for sickos – John Waters is a fan, which proves the point — that manages to overcome the controversial nature of its subject in order to offer mature insights about the secrets necessary to make a long-term partnership work. That it pulls everything off is every bit as shocking as that canine concept.

"The Drama" isn't really about school violence so much as it's a takedown of the judgement and hypocrisy that Emma receives, with Borgli's screenplay making it clear she was groomed into cult-like thinking online and that she's atoned for her sins. A more direct tackling of the subject can be found in "Our Hero, Balthazar," the jet-black directorial debut of Oscar Boyson that began a limited theatrical run a week prior "The Drama."

"Balthazar" is an equally thorny movie, although its satirical targets are very different. The film focuses on a rich, sociopathic New York teen (Balthazar, played by Jaeden Martell) who tries to evoke sympathy online by posting videos in which he pretends to be in tears talking about gun violence. His peers see through this — it isn't helped that he tries to make a move on his crush whilst school shooting footage plays on his screen — but he sees a chance at redemption after an Instagram troll starts threatening to shoot up a school after watching his reels.

Balthazar travels to Texas to try talk Solomon (Asa Butterfield) out of it, only for the two to begin an unexpected, instantly intense friendship. The manipulative teen quickly proves to be a bigger risk than the guy pretending to be a school shooter. It's a timely takedown of everything from influencer culture and the manosphere to the male loneliness epidemic. The film takes no prisoners as it twists the knife into those who sympathize with all possible sides of the divide. It's also one of the funniest movies in recent years.

Before "The Drama" and his previous effort, "Dream Scenario," which Looper reviewed, Borgli broke out on the arthouse scene with "Sick of Myself," a discomforting relationship comedy that makes the days leading up to the wedding in "The Drama" look smooth by comparison.

Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) and Thomas (Eirik Sæther) are a typical art world couple in Oslo; one is a struggling sculptor, the other is more stable despite working as a barista. But when Thomas' work starts getting attention and he's offered a major exhibition, Signe struggles to cope with not being the main character. She hatches a plan to make headlines — importing some recalled Russian medication from the dark web and pretending the allergic reactions it causes are a medical anomaly. 

It's another tale of a seemingly ordinary partnership rocked by secrets, although the distinction here is that Signe keeps digging a deeper hole for herself by developing the lore of her lie; continuing to take the destabilizing medication long after it's started negatively affecting her. She's not the sort of person to take the sensible option.

This is a darker social satire than "The Drama," taking a drastically different approach to tackling hypocrisy in a world defined by social currency, and analyzing the steps people will take to appear saintly towards strangers online while judging others. It's a far more sociopathic tale too; there's no risk of warming to these people against your better judgement.

If "The Drama" awakened a desire for darker romcoms rather than social satires, then 2020's "Dinner in America" might be just the ticket. It's an anarchic coming-of-age story so unconventional that no distributor touched it for two years after its premiere. 

Writer/director Adam Carter Rehmeier's film charts the unexpected meet-cute between two misfits; Simon (Kyle Gallner, best known for "Smile"), a punk singer on the run from the law, and Patty (Emily Skeggs), an awkward college dropout obsessed with his band. As Simon performs wearing a ski mask, she doesn't realize she's met the man she's mailed countless nude photos to over the years. The pair develop a flirtation anyway. He eventually winds up at her family home, worms his way into crashing there, and gradually helps give her the confidence she's desperately lacking.

The sweetness in "Dinner in America" is more apparent at surface level than it is with something like "The Drama," even if this is every bit as abrasive towards audiences. That's largely thanks to Gallner's performance, which reveals depth beneath the punk rock attitude. The film can feel like a rediscovered 1980s cult movie, with a suburban setting stuck in time, a stuffy conservative family unit corrupted easily by weed, and a screenplay unfortunately heavy on bigoted slurs. But these relative anachronisms surprisingly add to the offbeat charm, giving the impression of an oddity frozen in time. A must see for dark romance fans, with those sensitive caveats.

If you want another dark romance with Robert Pattinson in the driver's seat, then it's time for you to discover last year's box office flop "Die My Love," another abrasive tale of a relationship on the rocks. Director Lynne Ramsay's tale of the depressed Grace, played by Jennifer Lawrence, readjusting to life in a stifling rural town after leaving the big city does an incredible job of placing you in the headspace of a new mother who feels like relocation has torn her relationship apart.

It's one of Lawrence's best performances, made more complex because Ramsay has been explicit that this film isn't a depiction of post-partum depression, making the actor's portrayal of domestic alienation more challenging to unpack. There are no boundaries between reality and hallucination, and the film's darkest moments are presented so casually that it's unclear whether we're witnessing a horrific daydream, or the lived reality of a woman pushed over the edge.

Pattinson plays Jackson, Grace's long-suffering partner, and the actor successfully makes the daily challenges of his side of the relationship empathetic without threatening to villainize the female lead. That's an impressive feat, considering she commits an act of animal cruelty so out of the blue it should threaten to unravel the whole movie.

Jackson is very much a supporting performance next to Lawrence's powerful Grace, but Pattinson ensures the film's perspective never gets too detached from reality, even as Ramsay portrays him as unreliably as her chosen narrator. If you can watch this with your partner and not have an awkward car ride home afterward, you may be set for a happy life together.