Because the terms "melodrama" or "melodramatic" now usually bear a negative connotation representing narrative flaws usually associated with television soap operas, few contemporary films are eager to wear the description. Historically, however, this type of film is one of the oldest and most popular of the medium. Also known as the weepie or woman's film -- a term that arose during the silent era because of the number of females who attended screening -- traditional melodrama focuses predominantly on domestic tension and division, with the distinction between good and evil very well drawn between characters. Often sentimental, full of coincidence and contrived plot elements, melodrama appeals almost exclusively to the viewer's emotions rather than the mind, emphasizing stylized tones, grand gestures and overly emotional narrative action such as loss of love, emotional and/or physical duress, illness and death. Still, in the finest classic examples of the genre, such as Stella Dallas, Letter From an Unknown Woman, The Women, Greed and Written on the Wind, these conventions can often be devastating critiques of social and political repression and hypocrisy. Still, it often takes the touch of a very skilled filmmaker like Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder,Michael Powell, George Cukor, William Wyler, Erich Von Stroheim or Josef VonSternberg -- to raise these simple codes from saccharine cliches and stereotypes to popular art.

Featured Films:

Rating	MPAA	Year	Title
	R	2008	Lake City
	NR	2008	Three Monkeys
	PG13	2008	Nights in Rodanthe
		2007	Evening
	NR	2007	Lost in Beijing
	R	2007	The Babysitters
	R	2007	Georgia Rule
	PG13	2007	12
	PG	2007	Martian Child
	PG13	2006	Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion
	R	2006	Notes on a Scandal
	R	2006	Jindabyne
	PG13	2006	Last Holiday
	PG13	2005	Memoirs of a Geisha
	PG13	2005	Oliver Twist
	NR	2005	Dear Wendy
	PG13	2005	An Unfinished Life
		2005	Manderlay
		2005	Beauty Remains
	NR	2004	The Weeping Meadow
		2004	Woman Thou Art Loosed
	NR	2004	Don't Move
		2004	Sequins
	NR	2004	Phir Milenge
		2004	The Wool Cap
	PG13	2004	Ladder 49
	R	2004	A Love Song For Bobby Long
		2004	Life on Liberty Street
		2004	She's Too Young
	PG13	2004	Million Dollar Baby
		2004	Kings and Queen
	R	2004	Brothers
	R	2004	A Home at the End of the World
	PG	2004	The Prince & Me
		2003	Dangerous Liaisons
	R	2003	My Life Without Me
	R	2003	Dogville
		2003	The Prize Fighter
		2003	Adored: Diary of a Porn Star
	R	2003	Rick
		2003	Daybreak
		2003	Since Otar Left...
		2003	The Life of David Gale
		2003	Sub Terra
		2003	Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story
		2003	Garden Of Heaven
		2003	Vernie
		2003	Twist
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