The best John Sayles’s drama movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best John Sayles’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about John Sayles.
Girlfight
6.7/10
Diana Guzman begins to train as a boxer and achieves impressive success, blazing new trails for female boxers, all while keeping it a secret from her father.
Gridlock'd
6.9/10
After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.
Matinee
6.9/10
A showman introduces a small coastal town to a unique movie experience and capitalises on the Cuban Missile crisis hysteria with a kitschy horror extravaganza combining film effects, stage props and actors in rubber suits in this salute to the B-movie.
In the Electric Mist
6.1/10
Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before.
Passion Fish
7.3/10
After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.
Eight Men Out
7.2/10
A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.
Matewan
7.9/10
Filmed in the coal country of West Virginia, "Matewan" celebrates labor organizing in the context of a 1920s work stoppage. Union organizer, Joe Kenehan, a scab named "Few Clothes" Johnson and a sympathetic mayor and police chief heroically fight the power represented by a coal company and Matewan's vested interests so that justice and workers' rights need not take a back seat to squalid working conditions, exploitation and the bottom line.
Lianna
6.9/10
Lianna's life is a succession of domestic errands and boring faculty parties, however her heaviest cross to bear is dealing with her waning marriage to Dick. In order to find intellectual stimulus, Lianna takes a college extension child-psychology course taught by Ruth. When Lianna catches Dick having an affair with a young coed, she finds comfort and eventually true love in the arms of Ruth. However, this comes with a price as everything in her life is turned upside down.
Honeydripper
6.7/10
In 1950s Alabama, the owner of the Honeydripper juke joint finds his business dropping off and against his better judgment, hires a young electric guitarist in a last ditch effort to draw crowds during harvest time.
The Brother from Another Planet
6.7/10
An alien slave crash-lands in New York City while being pursued by two Men in Black bounty hunters. His attempt to find a place for himself on Earth parallels that of the immigrant experience.
City of Hope
7.3/10
This gritty inner-city film follows various people living in a troubled New Jersey setting, most notably Nick Rinaldi, a disillusioned contractor who has been helped along his whole life by his wealthy father. Other characters in this ensemble drama about urban conflict and corruption include Asteroid , an unstable homeless person, and Wynn, an idealistic young politician.
Return of the Secaucus Seven
7/10
Seven former college friends, along with a few new friends, gather for a weekend reunion at a summer house in New Hampshire to reminisce about the good old days, when they got arrested on the way to a protest in Washington, DC.
Unnatural Causes
6.7/10
Frank Coleman is a Vietnam veteran dying from cancer brought on by exposure to the defoliant chemical Agent Orange which he turns to Maude DeVictor, a Veterans Administration benefits counselor who teams up with Coleman to fight a lopsided batted against the bureaucratic system for its cover up of the possible dangers of Agent Orange.
The Umbrella
6.5/10
A man uses an imaginary umbrella to protect himself against against life; until he is convinced to use a real umbrella.
Hard Choices
6.2/10
A teenaged boy goes for a ride with his brother and the brother's friends, who proceed to rob a store and murder the clerk. They are caught and, despite the young boy's protestations, he is convicted of murder and sent to prison. A female social worker assigned to the boy's case not only believes him, but begins to fall in love with him, and determines to either help him prove his innocence or escape.
Untamagiru
7.3/10
A magical realist story of the legendary Okinawan hero Untamagiru participating in efforts to form an independent Okinawa before the island was returned to Japan in 1972.
