Best Social Drama Movies & TV Shows

Three friends in a low-income neighborhood find humor and hope in their lives as they grapple with bad boyfriends and their dysfunctional families.

Dr. Eli Watt, a widower, comes to a small town, considering himself a failure in his attempt to have a meaningful career in New York. He raises his son Jimmy as well as Letty, a baby whose mother has died in childbirth and whose father blames Watt and abandons the child. Watt dreams of returning to do research studies, but always something gets in the way: an epidemic, his children's needs, or the needs of his generally ungrateful patients. Only with the passing years does he come to find that his future isn't over and his past isn't quite the failure he believed.

Adapted from M.M. Kaye's best-selling novel, this dramatic HBO miniseries follows two star-crossed lovers -- the young British officer Ash (Ben Cross) and the betrothed princess Anjuli (Amy Irving) -- as they face daunting odds in their quest to be together. Set in India during the time of the British Raj, this haunting (and BAFTA-nominated) love story features spectacular scenery and an epic saga of battle, treachery and intrigue.

A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.

After losing her parents to a mysterious fire, nine-year-old Alice Hart is raised by her grandmother June on a flower farm where she learns there are secrets within secrets. But years on, an unearthed betrayal sees Alice forced to face her past.

Romance at a murder trial with a pair of sequestered jurors who are the only ones who think that the woman in the dock is innocent. Separated from their normal lives, jurors Terry Scott and David Campbell start to fall in love.

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.

The remarkable true story of how retiree Jerry Selbee discovers a mathematical loophole in the Massachusetts lottery and, with the help of his wife, Marge, wins $27 million dollars and uses the money to revive their small Michigan town.

Writer Paul Benjamin is nearly hit by a bus when he leaves Auggie Wren's smoke shop. Stranger Rashid Cole saves his life, and soon middle-aged Paul tells homeless Rashid that he wouldn't mind a short-term housemate. Still grieving over his wife's murder, Paul is moved by both Rashid's quest to reconnect with his father and Auggie's discovery that a woman who might be his daughter is about to give birth.

A young law school graduate is hired by a prestigious firm, but he neglects to inform them he is allergic to even a single whiff of alcohol.

Tom Holmes is someone guided by honesty and moral rectitude, a heroic veteran of the World War I marked by the unbearable suffering caused by his battle wounds, a traumatized but courageous man who will experience, in the years to come, the pain of misfortune but also the happiness of success and hope and love for other human beings.

When private tutor Thomas Arnold (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) becomes headmaster at Rugby, a boy's preparatory school in England, he puts into place a policy of strict punishment for unruliness and bulying. Arnold finds an ally in Tom Brown (Jimmy Lydon), a new student who is subjected to hazing and abuse by a group of older boys and is pressured by his friends to keep quiet about it. Fed up, he leads his fellow classmates in an underground rebellion against their tormentors. But certain unspoken rules still apply at the school and Brown loses his hero status when he is accussed of breaking the Rugby code of silence.

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.

Mayor Nick Wasicsko took office in 1987 during Yonkers' worst crisis when federal courts ordered public housing to be built in the white, middle class side of town, dividing the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics.

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

Jimmie Fails dreams of reclaiming the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Joined on his quest by his best friend Mont, Jimmie searches for belonging in a rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.

When a hard-working single mother, Sara Diaz, has her children taken from her after she is suspected of injuring her son, Ally Fisher, a recent law school graduate, is assigned to represent her case before Judge Martha Schulman, a veteran of the Family Court System.

A sensitive but confused teenager feels pressure from all directions and turns to drugs, which causes problems for him in school and at home.

His role in the plight of an unemployed man (Humphrey Bogart) and his disabled daughter profoundly affects an intractable Irish policeman (Pat O'Brien).

John and Mary Sims are city-dwellers hit hard by the financial fist of The Depression. Driven by bravery (and sheer desperation) they flee to the country and, with the help of other workers, set up a farming community - a socialist mini-society based upon the teachings of Edward Gallafent. The newborn community suffers many hardships - drought, vicious raccoons and the long arm of the law - but ultimately pull together to reach a bread-based Utopia.

In a small Mississippi town in 1916, an eccentric spinster battles her romantic yearnings for the randy boy next door.

A Polish contractor, Nowak, leads a group of workmen to London so they can provide cheap labor for a government official based there. Nowak has to manage the project and the men as they encounter the tempations of the West and loneliness and separation from their families. Nowak is the only one of the group who speaks English, and he uses this as a tool over his team. When the unrest in Poland leads to a military takeover, Nowak is faced with a much more difficult situation than he expected.

Striving to be independent, the blind but determined Don Baker moves away from his overprotective mother. After settling into his new San Francisco digs, Don meets kooky neighbor Jill Tanner. Don's quick wit and good looks disarm the free-spirited Jill, and before long they're more than just friends. Will Mrs. Baker's incessant meddling destroy Don and Jill's budding relationship?

An upper middle-class housewife suffering from various unexplained symptoms of illness comes to believe that she is suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity and moves into a secluded facility to recover.

Jesse Stone is a former L.A. homicide detective who left behind the big city and an ex-wife to become the police chief of the quiet New England fishing town of Paradise. Stone's old habits die hard as he continues to indulge his two favorite things: Scotch whiskey and women. After a series of murders—the first ever in Paradise—and a high school girl is raped, he's forced to face his own demons in order to solve the crimes.

Forced to run from the Texas Rangers after a heated misunderstanding leads to the death of a lawman, Mexican American farmer Gregorio Cortez sets off in desperate flight, evading a massive manhunt on horseback for days.

This four-part historical drama follows the end of Catherine the Great's reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin that helped shape the future of Russian politics.

The story concerns two agents, one Mexican (PJF) and one American, who are tasked to stop the smuggling of Mexican migrant workers across the border to California. The two agents go undercover, one as a poor migrant.

A tough District Attorney goes after a murderous crime gang, only to find that his witnesses, an innocent family, have clammed up in fear of reprisals.

A true story about Louis Pasteur, who revolutionized medicine by proving that much disease is caused by microbes, that sanitation is paramount and that at least some diseases can be cured by vaccinations.

An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.

A young doctor gives up big-city success to help his father set up a small-town clinic.

During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.

A common friend's sudden death brings three men, married with children, to reconsider their lives and ultimately leave together. But mindless enthusiasm for regained freedom will be short-lived.

A young confidential informant is sent on a dangerous undercover operation. It's a no-holds-barred look at the vulnerable foot soldiers of the War on Drugs, young criminals who are pressured to work for the police.

Jim Morris never made it out of the minor leagues before a shoulder injury ended his pitching career twelve years ago. Now a married-with-children high-school chemistry teacher and baseball coach in Texas, Jim's team makes a deal with him: if they win the district championship, Jim will try out with a major-league organization. The bet proves incentive enough for the team, and they go from worst to first, making it to state for the first time in the history of the school. Jim, forced to live up to his end of the deal, is nearly laughed off the try-out field--until he gets onto the mound, where he confounds the scouts (and himself) by clocking successive 98 mph fastballs, good enough for a minor-league contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jim's still got a lot of pitches to throw before he makes it to The Show, but with his big-league dreams revived, there's no telling where he could go.

Amidst a nuclear war, a plane carrying a group of schoolboys crash lands on a deserted island. With no adult survivors, the boys are forced to fend for themselves. At first they cooperate, but when they split into two separate camps -- one led by the pragmatic Ralph and the other by militaristic Jack -- their society falls into disarray, leading to a disturbing examination of human nature and a chilling conclusion.

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, whose challenge of their anti-miscegenation arrest for their marriage in Virginia led to a legal battle that would end at the US Supreme Court.

The setting is a city block during a sweltering summer, where the residents serve as representatives of the not-very-idealized American melting pot. There is idle chitchat, gossip, jealousy, racism, adultery, and suddenly but not unexpectedly, a murder.

Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Five office friends meet up for a night on the town to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of one of them. As the night wears on and the drink starts to tell, they become more confidential in expressing their concerns and hopes.

Joe is a young boy who lives with his mother, Joanna, in working-class London. The two reside above the tailor shop of Mr. Kandinsky, who likes to tell Joe stories. When Kandinsky informs Joe that a unicorn can grant wishes, the hopeful lad ends up buying a baby goat with one tiny horn, believing it to be a real unicorn. Undaunted by his rough surroundings, Joe sets about to prove that wishes can come true.

A Salem resident attempts to frame her ex-lover's wife for being a witch in the middle of the 1692 witchcraft trials.

After a teenager's friends die in an accident, he finds running allows him to remember them perfectly. Running, however, also brings him notoriety. He is caught between keeping the past alive and making new memories in the present.

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.

A Depression-downtrodden waif uses her brains instead of her body to rise from tyro con artist to crime boss.

Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.

In this drama, David Rosen and his wife Becky have lived in the same Coney Island neighborhood for nearly all their married life. But the area is not what it used to be, and a gang leader named Strut has decided to make Coney Island his new turf. Strut begins shaking down the merchants in the area, demanding payment for "protection" and using violence to deal with anyone who gets in his way. David refuses to give Strut protection money for the restaurant he owns, and as a result his diner is soon firebombed, while many of his neighbors are attacked and his synagogue is desecrated.