The best Almira Sessions’s drama movies

A holiday favourite for generations... George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.

Boston is being terrorized by a series of seemingly random murders of women. Based on the true story, the film follows the investigators path through several leads before introducing the Strangler as a character. It is seen almost exclusively from the point of view of the investigators who have very few clues to build a case upon.

An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

Poor physics student Marie is studying at the Sorbonne in 1890s Paris. One of the few women studying in her field, Marie encounters skepticism concerning her abilities, but is eventually offered a research placement in Pierre Curie's lab. The scientists soon fall in love and embark on a shared quest to extract, from a particular type of rock, a new chemical element they have named radium. However, their research puts them on the brink of professional failure.

Deeply distraught that her GI ex-boyfriend plans to marry another woman, Norah Larkin agrees to go out on a date with lothario Harry Prebble. Norah's drunken night out with Prebble ends in a hazily remembered confrontation and the next day a startling discovery: Harry has been murdered, and the police have found Norah's personal effects at the scene. Tipped off to the breaking news, reporter Casey Mayo invites Norah to tell her side of the story.

Sam Tucker, a cotton picker, in search of a better future for his family, decides to grow his own cotton crop. In the first year, the Tuckers battle disease, a flood, and a jealous neighbor. Can they make it as farmers?

Jeff Gerber, a racist insurance agent and fitness freak, lives in a typical suburban neighborhood. But Jeff's bigoted world of taunting and harassing black people on and off the job is turned upside down when his skin inexplicably turns dark overnight. As Jeff tries to come to terms with this unexplained phenomenon that has befallen him, he soon becomes the victim himself, when all of his friends and neighbors suddenly shun and harass him.

Three World War II buddies promise to meet at a specified place and time 10 years after the war. They keep their word only to discover how far apart they've grown. But the reunion sparks memories of youthful dreams that haven't been fulfilled -- and slowly, the three men reevaluate their lives and try to find a way to renew their friendship.

It's the Hatfields vs. the McCoys in this 1949 film, with Farley Granger and Joan Evans as the hillbilly Romeo and Juliet whose forbidden romance rekindles a long-standing feud between their respective families.

Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.

In a small Mississippi town in 1916, an eccentric spinster battles her romantic yearnings for the randy boy next door. A 1961 film, adapted from a Tennessee Williams play, starring Geraldine Page, Laurence Harvey, John McIntire, Una Merkel and Rita Moreno.

Undertow stars Scott Brady as a gambler just out of wartime military service. No longer interested in wagers and speculations, Brady wants only to open up a mountain vacation lodge. Before this can take place, Brady is framed for murder, and forced to hide out in the home of Peggy Dow. With the help of Dow and a policeman friend, Brady searches for the real murderer. Watch carefully in Undertow and you'll spot new Universal contractee "Roc" Hudson as a plainclothes detective.

Celestine, the chamber-maid, has a new job in the country, at the Lanlaires. She has decided to use her beauty to seduce a wealthy man, but Mr. Lanlaire is not a right choice: the house is firmly controlled by Madame Lanlaire, helped by the strange valet Joseph. Then she tries the neighbour, former officer Mauger. This seems to work. But soon the son of the Lanlaires comes back. He is young, attractive and does not share his mother's antirepublican opinions. So Celestine's beauty attracts Captain Mauger, young Georges Lanlaire, and Joseph. Three men, from three different social classes, with three different conceptions of life. Will Celestine be able to convince Georges of her sincerity?

Racial tensions threaten to explode when a black man is elected sheriff of a small, racially divided town in the Deep South.

B-movie film noir take on Crime and Punishment. A college student gets deeper and deeper in trouble when he takes a loan from a shady college professor.

Jaded movie star Vanessa Windsor, saved from a studio accident by handsome extra Chris Farley, pursues him, and soon he's the 'caretaker' of her beach house. Vanessa's sexy, alcoholic adult daughter Penny accidentally meets Chris, who rescues her from an 'octopus' boyfriend. Before you know it, Chris is involved with both mother and daughter, and his only way out is to take a job in a Mexican picture about man-eating orchids...

A bleak mansion sits ominously on a cliff above the sea somewhere on Florida's east coast. In its shadows, two people meet: a scientist haunted by incurable illness and a beautiful woman haunted by the voice of her dead husband. Ronald Reagan and Hollywood-debuting Viveca Lindfors star in an eerie drama steeped in religious faith and supernatural fear, in the destructive power of sexual jealousy and the redemptive power of love. In one of his earliest directorial efforts, Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, The Shootist) displays his command of pacing and camerawork, building the action to a climactic hurricane that parallels the tumultuous emotions of characters precariously balanced between now and the hereafter.

Professor Henry Barnes decides he's lived long enough and contemplates suicide. His attitude is changed by Peggy Taylor, a chipper young mother-to-be who charms him into renting out his attic as an apartment for her and her husband Jason, a former GI struggling to finish college.