Best Dire Movies & TV Shows

After yet another defeat inflicted by G.I. Joe, the immediate subordinates of Cobra's leader, Cobra Commander, have finally come to the end of their patience with his apparent incompetence and his inability to achieve real victories. The leader of the research and interrogations wing, Dr. Mindbender, receives a dream showing the solution. His plan is to collect the genetic material of great warriors and military leaders to create a composite clone that would be the perfect leader for Cobra. Now they set out to put this scheme into motion, and G.I. Joe has very little time to learn of this plot before Cobra becomes that much more a dire threat to the world.

When Emilia and her daughter Sophie are left in an unexpected, dire financial situation, they discover an intriguing option to pay for Sophie’s college—entering a regional Mother[1]Daughter beauty pageant with a lucrative scholarship prize. But they don’t realize a competing mother-daughter team are willing to go to disturbing and dangerous lengths to win the crown.

Over a long weekend, John & Marlena travel to Zurich, Ben & Ciara have a romantic getaway in New Orleans, Chad visits some old friends in Phoenix, and Abe, Paulina, Lani, and Eli vacation in Miami. All find themselves embroiled in a mystery involving stolen jewels which, in the wrong hands, could cause dire consequences for Salem.

After more than a year of paranormal attacks, including unexplained scratches, apparitions, disembodied voices and poltergeist activity, Karen and her family - daughter Chloe, 20, and sons Cameron, 21, and Colby, 15 - are distraught and in dire need of help. Paranormal investigator Tim Wood and paranormal researcher Sapphire Sandalo come to their aid and soon discover the entire town has a disturbingly dark history, and an oppressive energy has taken over.

Karel Novak is an incredibly naive Czech immigrant who is taken under the wing of streetwise New York chorus girl Sylvia. With the help of lovable cop-on-the-beat Murphy, Sylvia hides Karel from the immigration authorities and ultimately falls in love with him. In addition to Karel's illegal-alien status, the plot is complicated by a crooked lawyer and a group of well-meaning welfare workers who endeavor to place Sylvia's kid brother Frank in a foster home.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri. Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

What was supposed to be a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with the police. What followed was one of the most notorious trials in history.

In a small town in the 1950s a repertory company meets on Monday morning to start rehearsing the following week's play. This is a ghastly thing written by the aunt of one of the theatre's directors. The producer doesn't try to hide his annoyance about it, and is further exercised when the authoress herself arrives to help. The cast have to try and sort out real-life problems that keep intruding as they wrestle with the play's dire dialogue.

Two carefree pals traveling through Alabama are mistakenly arrested, and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who's a lawyer - Vincent Gambini, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. When he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend, to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!

Successful movie director John L. Sullivan, convinced he won't be able to film his ambitious masterpiece until he has suffered, dons a hobo disguise and sets off on a journey, aiming to "know trouble" first-hand. When all he finds is a train ride back to Hollywood and a beautiful blonde companion, he redoubles his efforts, managing to land himself in more trouble than he bargained for when he loses his memory and ends up a prisoner on a chain gang.

When an IMF mission ends badly, the world is faced with dire consequences. As Ethan Hunt takes it upon himself to fulfill his original briefing, the CIA begin to question his loyalty and his motives. The IMF team find themselves in a race against time, hunted by assassins while trying to prevent a global catastrophe.

Wreck-It Ralph is the 9-foot-tall, 643-pound villain of an arcade video game named Fix-It Felix Jr., in which the game's titular hero fixes buildings that Ralph destroys. Wanting to prove he can be a good guy and not just a villain, Ralph escapes his game and lands in Hero's Duty, a first-person shooter where he helps the game's hero battle against alien invaders. He later enters Sugar Rush, a kart racing game set on tracks made of candies, cookies and other sweets. There, Ralph meets Vanellope von Schweetz who has learned that her game is faced with a dire threat that could affect the entire arcade, and one that Ralph may have inadvertently started.

Aisha, a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland, is floundering in a maze of social services and bureaucracy. As her situation becomes increasingly dire, Aisha struggles to maintain hope and dignity against the looming threat of deportation.

When a mysterious stranger arrives from the future with a dire warning, Leo is forced to rise and lead his brothers, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey in a fight to save the world from a terrifying alien species.

Pop Clark is about to lose his baseball team, unless they can win the pennant so he can pay off debts. He hires ace player Larry Kelly to ensure the victory. As well as rival teams, mobsters are trying to prevent the wins, and as the pennant race nears the end, Pop's star players begin to be killed, on and off the field. Can Larry romance Pop's daughter, win enough games, and still have time to stop a murderer before he strikes more than three times?

Johnny Rutledge is a drifter who comes to and discovers a cabin in the forest where five kids: January, February, March, April, and May are living without parents. Their parents died a while ago, and they want to keep that secret from the townspeople, especially the young school teacher, Prudence Millett, to avoid being sent to a children's home and eventual separation. Johnny moves in with the kids and poses as their uncle to take care of them while romancing Prudence. But in order to keep the children, he has to get married.

A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and her selfish, nonconformist mother who has no intention of raising a family, along with her younger brother and sister, and her other older sister. Together, they fend for each other as they mature in an unorthodox journey that is their family life.

Dr. Jason Bull is the brilliant, brash, and charming founder of a hugely successful trial consulting firm.

The story of a lonely young woman who begins an unlikely relationship with dire consequences.

A society woman believes her husband is having an affair, a misconception which may have dire personal consequences for all involved.

Steve Bell, Tommy, Pig, Ape, and String are run of town. Steve, while hopping a freight card and trying to avoid the brakeman, is killed. The boys meet Steve's mother, Alice Bell and Tommy is given a job in the storage garage which she owns jointly with Mack Steward. Steve's brother Don Bell is working with some gangsters by tipping them off on valuable merchandise that can be hijacked. Pig, Ape and String overhear Don's plans to use Tommy as the fall guy in the next hijacking.

A famous aviator helps an amateur enter a cross-country air race for women.

British hunter Thorndike vacationing in Bavaria has Hitler in his gun sight. He is captured, beaten, left for dead, and escapes back to London where he is hounded by German agents and aided by a young woman.

Mobster "Baby Face" Martin returns home to visit the New York neighborhood where he grew up, dropping in on his mother, who rejects him because of his gangster lifestyle, and his old girlfriend, Francey, now a syphilitic prostitute. Martin also crosses paths with Dave, a childhood friend struggling to make it as an architect, and the Dead End Kids, a gang of young boys roaming the streets of the city's East Side slums.

A juror on the inside and a woman on the outside manipulate a court trial involving a major gun manufacturer.

Carl and Jessie are half siblings who feel trapped by the existential and economic pressures of living in the small mining town of Canaan, Ohio. Their shared rebellion soon takes on the form of an illicit love affair depicted in interwoven sequences of lusty poeticism and ethnographic vérité. When Jessie becomes pregnant, the tension between the couple’s youthful vitality and the dire realities of rural society leads to consequences both despairing and hopeful.

Claire (Alexandra Breckenridge), a savvy venture capitalist from New York City, escapes to a quaint town in Vermont for the holidays and becomes a guest of the Fortenbury Bookstore. Upon arrival, Claire finds Christmas celebrations have been canceled by the town after a flood and the bookstore is in a dire state of disrepair. She immediately takes on the challenge to revitalize the store, but clashes with the owner, Andrew (Jamie Spilchuk), who initially rejects all her proposed improvements. Eventually, sparks fly as the two begin a budding romance, and Claire’s infectious optimism inspires Andrew to join her in reviving the yuletide spirit. But everything comes to a screeching halt when Claire discovers that Andrew is planning to sell the bookstore in the New Year. Will the spirit of Christmas be enough to change Andrew’s mind and encourage him to follow his heart?

A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.

Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane flees across the United States after he is wrongly accused of starting the fire that killed his best friend.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

It's World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere - especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter - creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.

Comedy about an inept American placed in charge of sales at his company's London branch. He has no experience with British culture, knows nothing about sales, and has only one employee, Dave. Each episode begins with a scene of Margaret appearing in dire circumstances.

When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.

In 1923, Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian scientist, philosopher & social innovator, predicted that in 80 to 100 years honeybees would collapse. Now, beekeepers around the United States and around the world are reporting an incredible loss of honeybees, a phenomenon deemed "Colony Collapse Disorder." This "pandemic" is indicated by bees disappearing in mass numbers from their hives with no clear single explanation. The queen is there, honey is there, but the bees are gone. For the first time, in an alarming inquiry into the insights behind Steiner's prediction QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? investigates the long-term causes behind the dire global bee crisis through the eyes of biodynamic beekeepers, commercial beekeepers, scientists and philosophers.

A young couple struggling against poverty must keep their marriage a secret in order for the husband to keep his job, as his boss doesn't like to hire married men.

Former football player and wrestler Chris Nowinski's quest to publicize recent findings about the often dire consequences of head concussions sustained by athletes in contact sports — injuries that have previously been considered momentary setbacks and ignored in the name of toughness and dedication to the team.

Explore the intoxication of sexual attraction, the dangerous power of emotional manipulation, and how finding a volatile form of solace in another can have dire consequences as two conflicted coppers track down a pair of deadly killers.

Bear Grylls takes his survival expertise one step further as he reveals the incredible stories of ordinary people stranded in devastatingly dire situations. Coupled with incredible archive footage and interviews with the survivors, Bear will pit himself against the very same dangers and scenarios, reliving their journeys through first-hand experience and showing us how to survive through some of the world's most desolate landscapes.

After a group of convicts escapes from prison, they take refuge in the wilderness. While most of the crew are ruthless sociopaths, Jim Canfield is an innocent man who was jailed under false pretenses. When Canfield and his fellow fugitives reach an isolated farming settlement where the men are all away, it creates tension with the local women. Things get direr when rumors of hidden money arise, and Canfield discovers that the man who framed him is part of the community.

The school year is finally ending, and T.J. Detweiler is looking forward to summer. But boredom quickly sets in when his friends leave for camp — until T.J. uncovers an evil plot to do away with summer vacation! A crazy former principal, Dr. Benedict, is planning to use a laser beam to alter the weather and create permanent winter. Faced with the dire threat of year-round school, T.J. rounds up the RECESS gang and bands together with some unexpected allies — Miss Finster and Principal Prickly — in a nonstop adventure to save everyone's summer break. As the kids discover the heroes inside themselves, a platoon of wacky characters, far-out music, and sci-fi surprises turn this madcap mission into a major victory for fun!

Unexpectedly widowed, prim and proper housewife Grace Trevethyn finds herself in dire financial straits when she inherits massive debts her late husband had been accruing for years. Faced with losing her house, she decides to use her talent for horticulture and hatches a plan to grow potent marijuana which can be sold at an astronomical price, thus solving her financial crisis.

When a Supreme Court judge commits suicide and his secretary is found murdered, all fingers point to Carl Anderson, a homeless veteran who's deaf and mute. But when public defender Kathleen Riley is assigned to his case, she begins to believe that Anderson may actually be innocent. Juror Eddie Sanger, a Washington lobbyist, agrees, and together the pair begins their own investigation of events.

Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.

As the Compliance and Outreach Manager for The Animal Discovery Institute, a non-profit animal rights organization headquartered in San Diego, Tilly Monterey finally gets a chance to lead the charge on the company's next project: an Australian penguin sanctuary in dire need of some financial assistance.

Producer Bob Temple, who's brought an American show to London, loves his star Diana, but she won't take him seriously as a lover. To show her, he picks up stranger Lady Arlington, whose financier husband neglects her. On a weekend at the Arlington country house, Bob is used by both Lady A. and her friend to make their husbands jealous; this works all too well, and Bob is in danger from both husbands.

Hypochondriac Danny Weems gets drafted and accidentally smuggles his girlfriend aboard his Pacific-bound troopship.

After starring in "The Sacketts", Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott team up again but this time as Mac and Dal Traven, in a movie based on a classic Louis L'Amour novel. They are brothers, who meet up at the end of the Civil War fighting on opposite sides. They go home only to find their family in dire need and their sisters and brother kidnapped by ruthless raiders. They set out to rescue their family.

Butler is an experienced car thief, McCoy a struggling reporter trying to nail a bad guy-senator. Meeting for the first time when they're both in dire need of air transportation, they team up long enough for Butler to steal a car with a very special piece of luggage in the trunk, and all hell breaks loose. Suddenly they're chased by both sides of the law, and who can tell which is which?

A struggling band find themselves attached to a fugitive and drawn into a series of old feuds and love affairs, as they try to stay together and find musical success.