Drama Movies of 1981
On Golden Pond
There's little that happens in On Golden Pond that isn't thoroughly predictable from the start, but the film is blessed with so much star power, charm and honest sentiment that everyone in the audience is willing to ignore the cliches and go ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Taps
Devery Freeman's novel Father Sky was the inspiration for the far-fetched but convincingly acted and directed Taps. When an exclusive military school is threatened with demolition by a rapacious ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Fort Apache, the Bronx
Paul Newman stars as an essentially decent cop patrolling that decimated, drug-and-gang-ridden borough known on the city maps as the Bronx, but ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Stepping into the role made famous on Broadway by Tom Conti, Richard Dreyfuss stars as a profoundly handicapped sculptor in Whose Life is it Anyway? Left a ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Rollover
Alan J. Pakula directs the political thriller Rollover, produced by leading lady Jane Fonda's production company, IPC Films. Featuring a racist plot and negative stereotypes about the Arab world, this ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The Marva Collins Story
When the story of the real-life Marva Collins was nationally telecast on 60 Minutes in 1979, residents of ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Ragtime
E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime was a sprawling fictional account of American manners and mores in the years between 1900 and 1913. Among the mosaic of colorful factual and fictional ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Skokie
Skokie is the true story of a critical test of Constitutional rights in Illinois. In 1977, a small band of ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Victory
John Huston directed this exciting World War II action film, which culminates in a rousing soccer game. In a German prisoner of war camp, Major Karl von Steiner (Max Von Sydow), the camp ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Absence of Malice
In this legal drama from director Sydney Pollack, Sally Field stars as Megan, an ambitious newpaper reporter who, based on information ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Death Hunt
Set in the '30s, Mountie Millen (Lee Marvin) is assigned to track down accused murderer Johnson ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Quartet
No relation to the 1949 Somerset Maugham "omnibus" film of the same name, 1981's Quartet is based on the roman a clef by Jean Rhys. Though the names are changed, it ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Americana
In Americana, David Carradine's feature-film directorial debut, the director casts himself as a softspoken Vietnam vet whose aimless ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Night Crossing
Two friends chart a daring path to freedom in this drama from Walt Disney Pictures. Peter Strelzyk (John Hurt) and Guenter Wetzel (Beau Bridges) are two men living in East Germany who can no longer tolerate the petty ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Bob Rafelson's remake of 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice, with a screenplay by the award-winning playwright David Mamet, stars Jack Nicholson as Frank Chambers, a depression-era drifter who ends up at a diner run ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The Chosen
The overemphatic acting of Robby Benson was something of an endurance test to certain critics of the 1980s, but even these carpers were ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Agency
Agency tackles the question of the efficiency of media manipulation. An unscrupulous advertising agency, in league with equally untrustworthy political campaign manager Robert Mitchum, plants subliminal messages in its TV commercials. ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Raggedy Man
Sissy Spacek was directed by her husband Jack Fisk in 1981's Raggedy Man. Spacek ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Out of the Blue
Out of the Blue captures the turbulence of youth culture of the early '80s by presenting a three-person nuclear family that is about to implode. In a prologue, Don Barnes (Dennis Hopper), a school bus driver, is drunkenly ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Body and Soul
A medical student decides to enter the world of boxing and dives into a life of superficial values and ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Eureka
A reclusive, unhappy gold magnate finds his isolated tropical paradise threatened by the intrusion of organized ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The People vs. Jean Harris
The videotaped TV movie The People vs. Jean Harris premiered May 7, 1981-five weeks after the outcome of Jean Harris' trial. Ellen Burstyn plays Jean, the 57-year old ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Mommie Dearest
When her adoptive mother Joan Crawford died in 1977, erstwhile actress/author Christina Crawford and her brother Christopher were left out of Joan Crawford's will, "for reasons which are well known to them." Industryites have suggested ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Chariots of Fire
Based on a true story, Chariots of Fire is the internationally acclaimed Oscar-winning ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Zoot Suit
Based on a 1940s Los Angeles murder trial, this film follows the case of members of a Mexican-American gang, led by Henry Reyna (Daniel Valdez), as they are tried and sentenced to San Quentin for a murder they may not have ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Antony and Cleopatra
Perhaps inspired by the success of PBS' Shakespeare Plays series, Bard Productions Ltd. Came out with this diverting if not very ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles' original novel The French Lieutenant's Woman was ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Dallas: Season 05
Having closed its fourth season with the unidentified body of a young woman floating in the Ewing family swimming pool, Dallas launches its fifth season by casting suspicion ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Knightriders
Knightriders may well be the only cycle flick ever to be ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Ticket to Heaven
The "Moonie" cult of the 1970s and '80s has been cited as the principal inspiration for the 1981 Canadian production Ticket to ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Mephisto
Based on Klaus Mann's novel, Mephisto details the rise of a Faustian character who figuratively sells his soul ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Prince of the City
Inspired by a true story, Prince of the City stars Treat Williams as a Manhattan detective who agrees to help the US Department of Justice weed out corruption in the NYPD. ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Hill Street Blues: Season 01
[ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Great Expectations
Dickens' oft-filmed novel Great Expectations has been adapted ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Made in Britain
Director Alan Clarke's influential television drama Made in Britain marked the screen ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Kagero-za
The inner workings of the human psyche are featured in this study of relationships between different leading characters. The ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Hedda Gabler
[ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The Flame Trees of Thika
Based on an autobiographical novel by Elspeth Huxley, this 1981 film tells the story of the Grant family -- little Elspeth (Holly Aird) and her parents, Robin (David Robb) and Tilly (Hayley Mills) -- ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Texas Lightning
A manly trucker decides to make his gentle son more ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
American Pop
The rise and growth of American popular music through the 20th century is reflected in the lives of four generations of one family in this animated drama directed by Ralph Bakshi. Zalmie (voice of Jeffrey Lippa), a Russian Jew, emigrates to ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Das Boot ist voll
Based on fact, The Boat is Full is set during World War II. A group of Jewish refugees desperately attempt to escape to the safety of neutral Switzerland. The problem: ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Choices
Director Silvio Narizzano totes out a Sunday morning public affairs ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Lady Chatterley's Lover
The once-notorious D. H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly's Lover seemed like kid stuff by the time this 1981 adaptation hit the screens. To pep up ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Silsila
[ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Perro Callejero 2
The gritty Mexican drama Perro Callejero 2 follows the continuing exploits of the lead character, a ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The Child Bride of Short Creek
Originally made for television and based on a true story from the '50s, this film concerns a rural Arizona town that deals in polygamy. Specifically, a boy is shocked that his father (Christopher Atkins), a veteran of the Korean War, wishes to ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Danger UXB
The 13-part Danger UXB was the third presentation in the 1980-81 season of PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. Based upon the memoirs of Major A. B. "Bill" Hartley, this British production stars Anthony Andrews as engineer ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Death of a Prophet
Morgan Freeman makes an early screen appearance in this made-for-television docudrama inspired by the life and death of African-American activist Malcolm X. Book-ended by interviews with people ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
A Long Way Home
A young man searches for his brother and sister many years after the three were sent to separate foster homes in this ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Sense and Sensibility
Ten years before Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility was transformed into a lavish theatrical feature by director Ang Lee, the property was adapted as a rather less lavish but no less ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The True Game of Death
When a man forms a small movie production company, he doesn't plan on being foiled by the owners of ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
The Quack
The unusual Polish drama The Quack concerns a doctor who, while suffering from amnesia, spends his time walking through sparsely populated sections of Poland. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Looks and Smiles
Graham Green (a juvenile player, not the writer nor the Native American actor of almost the same name) is the star ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Pictures
Pictures is an expansive biopic about pioneer photographers Walter and Alfred Burton. Through the eyes of the ubiquitous Burton brothers, we ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Do You Remember Dolly Bell?
Filmed in Yugoslavia, Do You Remember Dolly Bell? is set in the ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Miss Morrison's Ghosts
In this period drama, Hannah Gordon and Dame Wendy Hiller play two sisters who teach students at Oxford University. However, their lives are turned upside down when they are visted by what ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
36 Chowringhee Lane
An older woman teaches Shakespeare in a girls' school, but events conspire to get her ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Zigeunerweisen
This is an enigmatic and challenging film in many ways. It is set in the 1930s and colored with nuances of the strange and sinister, one ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Szabadgyalog
A kind of fictionalized true story, if that is possible, this "cine-novel" ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Death in Venice
Tony Palmer directs this film version of Benjamin Britten's opera Death in Venice, based on the 1912 novella by Thomas Mann. Robert Gard plays Gustav von Aschenbach, a troubled writer who travels from Munich to Venice. While he ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
La Muerte del Palomo
When a dedicated jockey finds that the local politicians are not to be trusted and begins to feel his romance with a beautiful woman slowly slipping away, his last-ditch effort to risk it all for his trusted horse ... [ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Dukhda Khame ee Dirki
[ Drama movie - 1981 ]
Mi Nombre Es Sergio Soy Alcoholico
[ Drama movie - 1981 ]
