Dramas based on Books on Netflix
Last updated May 11, 2025
Stella Days
2011 | NR | 3.3 out of 5 StarsIn mid-1950s Ireland, a parish priest -- in an attempt to raise funds for his church and merge his passion for film with his faith -- opens a small cinema in his community, provoking conflict with the bishop and the parishioners.
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The Man Who Laughs
2012 | NR | 3.3 out of 5 StarsScarred by his kidnappers as a child, Gwynplaine now makes a living from his disfigurement in a traveling show, where his only friend is blind Déa. His loyalty to her is tested when he learns that he's heir to a wealthy, influential family.
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Random Hearts
1999 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsDutch Van Den Broeck's and Kay Chandler's spouses perish in a devastating plane crash. Using his police expertise, Dutch searches for answers, finding more in common between his wife and Kay's husband than just a plane wreck ... they were lovers.
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Bang the Drum Slowly
1973 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsBruce Pearson (Robert De Niro) is a dedicated baseball player who's hiding a secret: He has Hodgkin's disease. His only confidante is the team's star pitcher, Henry Wiggin (Michael Moriarty), who covers for him as he faces not only a waning season but a slowly fading life. Vincent Gardenia received an Academy Award nomination for his role as the team's coach in this tearjerker based on Mark Harris's 1950s novel.
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Brokeback Mountain
2005 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsWhile working together near Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain in 1963, sheepherders Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar begin an increasingly passionate affair. But keeping their relationship a secret from their wives proves agonizing and all-consuming.
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Taking Woodstock
2009 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsA twentysomething man finds his life forever changed in the summer of 1969 when he offers up his parents' motel in the Catskills as a home base for Woodstock organizers and then helps the show go on by donating an all-important music festival permit.
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Red Riding Trilogy: Part 1: 1974
2009 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsLoosely based on facts surrounding Britain's notorious Yorkshire Ripper case, this thriller uncovers rampant corruption in mid-1970s Northern England. As girls are disappearing, a young reporter's investigation leads him down a dark path.
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Trishna
2011 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsRaised in rapidly changing rural India, well-educated Trishna is torn between cultural tradition and her own desires when she falls in love with a British businessman who has returned to India to work in his family's hotel business.
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Screwed
2011 | NR | 3.2 out of 5 StarsIn this crime drama based on a true story, a soldier who served a traumatic tour in Iraq gets a job as a prison guard and is drawn into an underworld of corruption, drug trafficking and brutality.
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Bringing Out the Dead
1999 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsAn ambulance driver on the verge of a nervous breakdown stumbles through three sleepless nights on the job accompanied by a callous crew and finds humanity in an unlikely friendship with a heart-attack victim's ex-junkie daughter.
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The Tailor of Panama
2001 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsIn this gripping adaptation of John le Carré's best-selling novel, a disgraced, amoral British spy blackmails a local tailor into stealing secrets from the Panama Canal Commission regarding its plans for the waterway.
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Mister Foe
2007 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsIn a darkly twisted plot, teenage voyeur Hallam Foe spies on his stepmother through binoculars, finding himself irresistibly attracted to her even as he becomes convinced that she murdered his mother.
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Cracks
2009 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsMiss G., a teacher at a girls' boarding school, is unusually close with one of her charges, Di. But when the arrival of a new student evokes strong emotions, disrupting Miss G.'s relationship with the others, it is certain that someone will get hurt.
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The Killer Inside Me
2010 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsWest Texas Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is harboring a dark secret. Though the small town's residents think he's a bit dense, Ford is, in fact, afflicted with a "sickness" that turns the mild-mannered peace officer into a brutal, psychotic killer.
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One Day
2011 | NR | 3.1 out of 5 StarsAfter a romantic tryst on college graduation night, Emma and Dexter pursue separate dreams. This romantic drama based on a novel of the same name checks in with them each year on the same date, tracking their personal and professional progress.
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All the King's Men
2006 | NR | 3.0 out of 5 StarsSean Penn stars as corrupt Southern politician Willie Stark -- a charismatic man who wins the populist vote but, behind closed doors, is as underhanded as those he smeared -- in this remake of an Oscar-winning 1949 film of the same name. Ex-reporter Jack Burden (Jude Law) unwittingly helps Stark gain political power, but it's just a matter of time before the governor's crooked dealings are exposed.
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Down to the Dirt
2008 | NR | 3.0 out of 5 StarsDrug addict Keith Kavanagh (Joel Thomas Hynes) longs to clean up his act and get a new start on life, but lacks the motivation to do so. Determined to escape both his small Newfoundland town and his addictions, Keith seeks solace in his girlfriend Natasha (Mylene Savoie) but eventually descends further into depravity. Hynes also penned the semiautobiographical novel that inspired this dark drama.
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Higher Ground
2011 | NR | 3.0 out of 5 StarsVera Farmiga stars in and directs this sensitive and searching chronicle describing one woman's lifetime journey of faith -- one that initially leads her to join a fundamentalist sect and then leave it again years later.
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Being Flynn
2012 | NR | 3.0 out of 5 StarsA young man employed at a Boston homeless shelter comes upon his long-lost, destitute and alcoholic father while at work one evening in this subtle, emotionally charged drama based on the acclaimed memoir by poet and playwright Nick Flynn.
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Lie with Me
2005 | NR | 2.9 out of 5 StarsHappily unattached, the sexually voracious Leila satisfies her desires with a host of rapidly changing bed partners, unconcerned about the emotional consequences. But that all changes when she meets an artist looking for a deeper commitment.
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Adam Resurrected
2008 | NR | 2.9 out of 5 StarsDecades after he survived the Holocaust by becoming a pet "dog" to a brutal concentration camp commandant (Willem Dafoe), Jewish circus entertainer Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) finds himself confined to an Israeli mental institution. But when he encounters a feral young boy being held like a dog in the hospital's basement, Stein discovers a new opportunity to reclaim his humanity. Paul Schrader directs this biting drama.
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Spies of Warsaw: Season 1
2013 | NR | 2.9 out of 5 StarsWith World War II looming, a French military attaché is posted to Warsaw and soon finds himself entangled in multiple espionage intrigues. Meanwhile, he falls for a bewitching Parisian attorney also engaged in global political affairs.
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Spies of Warsaw
2013 | NR | 2.9 out of 5 StarsAs Germany prepares to lead the world into war, military attaché Col. Jean-François Mercier tries to convince French leaders of the growing danger. While risking his life to make his case, he unexpectedly falls in love with a Parisian lawyer.
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Dangerous Parking
2007 | NR | 2.8 out of 5 StarsThis drama based on a novel by Stuart Browne recounts the desperate life of film director Noah Arkwright (Peter Howett), a drug addict and alcoholic who's finally inspired to turn things around ... but is it too late? A fellow alcoholic (Rachael Stirling) persuades Noah to give sobriety a try, and his pal Ray (Sean Pertwee) helps him out, but it's Claire (Saffron Burrows), a bewitching cellist, who makes Noah really want to become a better man.
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Unforgivable
2011 | NR | 2.8 out of 5 StarsThis moody drama follows the increasingly chaotic life of Francis, a crime novelist who moves to Venice to write his next book. After starting an affair with a young beauty, Francis suspects her of cheating -- even as his own daughter goes missing.
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