Highest-Rated Movies about 'Family Tragedy'

American History X (1998), 4 Little Girls (1997), On Golden Pond (1981), The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (2004), Brooklyn (2015), Five Easy Pieces (1970), Fruitvale Station (2013), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Family Tragedy movies.

#1. American History X (1998)

Storyline: Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for brutally killing two black men who tried to break into/steal his truck. Through his brother's, Danny Vineyard, narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

Plot Keywords: neo nazi, jail, hatred, tearjerker, prison, female nudity, anal rape ...

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#2. 4 Little Girls (1997)

Storyline: This film recounts the people and events leading up to the one of the most despicable hate-crimes during the height of the civil-rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In that attack, four little African-American girls lost their lives and a nation was simultaneously revolted, angered and galvanized to push the fight for equality and justice on.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>

Plot Keywords: despair, race relations, childhood memory, faith, racism, family relationships, racial tension ...

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#3. On Golden Pond (1981)

Storyline: The loons are back again on Golden Pond and so are Norman Thayer, a retired professor, and Ethel who have had a summer cottage there since early in their marriage. This summer their daughter Chelsea -- whom they haven't seen for years -- feels she must be there for Norman's birthday. She and her fiance are on their way to Europe the next day but will be back in a couple of weeks to pick up the fiance's son. When she returns Chelsea is married and her stepson has the relationship with her father that she always wanted. Will father and daughter be able to communicate at last?

Plot Keywords: motorboat, mother son relationship, birthday party, backflip, single mother, lake, swimming ...

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#4. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (2004)

Storyline: This documentary presents a sobering reminder of the racial tensions that gripped America not so long ago. In Mississippi during the '50s, a black teenager named Emmett Louis Till, who is from Chicago and visiting his great-uncle, whistles at a white woman in public. Not too long afterward, he is kidnapped and murdered. The filmmakers revisit the public outrage that follows, revealing Till's family as being particularly brave for standing up to white racism when it was clearly unsafe to do so.

Plot Keywords: teenage boy, mississippi, murder, racism, 1950s, acquittal, civil rights ...

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#5. Brooklyn (2015)

Storyline: Ireland, early-1950s. Eilis Lacey is a young woman working in a grocery shop. She has greater ambitions and moves to Brooklyn, New York, leaving her mother and sister, Rose, behind. She is terribly homesick but eventually settles down, finding a job, studying to be a bookkeeper and meeting a nice young Italian man, Tony. Things are going well but then she learns that Rose has died, and decides to return to Ireland, temporarily. She and Tony hastily get married and then she sets off back to Ireland, alone. Life is about to get complicated...

Plot Keywords: immigrant, 1950s, irish accent, brooklyn new york city, boarding house, coney island brooklyn new york city, death of sister ...

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#6. Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Storyline: Robert Dupea has given up his promising career as a concert pianist and is now working in oil fields. He lives together with Rayette, who's a waitress in a diner. When Robert hears from his sister that his father isn't well, he drives up to Washington to see him, taking Rayette with him. There he gets confronted with his rich, cultured family that he had left behind.

Plot Keywords: road movie, pianist, alienation, on the road, drifter, infidelity, pregnancy ...

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#7. Fruitvale Station (2013)

Storyline: This is the true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who wakes up on the morning of December 31, 2008 and feels something in the air. Not sure what it is, he takes it as a sign to get a head start on his resolutions: being a better son to his mother, whose birthday falls on New Year's Eve, being a better partner to his girlfriend, who he hasn't been completely honest with as of late, and being a better father to T, their beautiful 4 year old daughter. He starts out well, but as the day goes on, he realizes that change is not going to come easy. He crosses paths with friends, family, and strangers, each exchange showing us that there is much more to Oscar than meets the eye. But it would be his final encounter of the day, with police officers at the Fruitvale BART station that would shake the Bay Area to its very core, and cause the entire nation to be witnesses to the story of Oscar Grant.

Plot Keywords: gay, friendship, brother sister relationship, telephone, telephone call, unemployment, loss of job ...

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#8. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Storyline: An elderly Jewish widow living in Atlanta can no longer drive. Her son insists she allow him to hire a driver, which in the 1950s meant a black man. She resists any change in her life but, Hoke, the driver is hired by her son. She refuses to allow him to drive her anywhere at first, but Hoke slowly wins her over with his native good graces. The movie is directly taken from a stage play and does show it. It covers over twenty years of the pair's life together as they slowly build a relationship that transcends their differences.

Plot Keywords: jewish, mother son relationship, interracial friendship, illiteracy, funeral, elevator, cemetery ...

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#9. Terms of Endearment (1983)

Storyline: Aurora and Emma are mother and daughter who march to different drummers. Beginning with Emma's marriage, Aurora shows how difficult and loving she can be. The movie covers several years of their lives as each finds different reasons to go on living and find joy. Aurora's interludes with Garrett Breedlove, retired astronaut and next door neighbor are quite striking. In the end, different people show their love in very different ways.

Plot Keywords: cancer, based on novel, mother daughter relationship, terminal illness, extramarital affair, dying young, compassion ...

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#10. Interiors (1978)

Storyline: The story of a very dysfunctional family and what happens when the parents divorce. Eve (Geraldine Page) and Arthur (EG Marshall) are a 60-something couple, recently separated. They have three adult daughters - Renata (Diane Keaton), Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) and Flyn (Kristin Griffith). Renata is a poet and is married to Frederick (Richard Jordan). Joey is (reluctantly) in advertising and is married to Mike (Sam Waterston). Flyn is a film and TV actress. Eve is an incredibly negative woman and this has had a toxic effect on her children. This results in stifling, unsupportive relationships and joyless lives.

Plot Keywords: no music, father daughter relationship, mental illness, mother daughter relationship, sister sister relationship, attempted rape, family gathering ...

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#11. The Basketball Diaries (1995)

Storyline: Film adaptation of street tough Jim Carroll's epistle about his kaleidoscopic free fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, Jim's life centers around the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind. A best friend who is dying of leukemia, a coach ("Swifty") who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an unhealthy appetite for heroin -- all of these begin to encroach on young Jim's dream of becoming a basketball star. Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mother's mounting concern for her son. He can't go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin for which he steals, robs and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie, an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim "picked up a game" now and then, is he able to begin the long journey back to sanity.

Plot Keywords: addiction, diary, molestation, gay, high school, friend, basketball ...

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#12. Hereditary (2018)

Storyline: When her mentally ill mother passes away, a woman named Annie (Toni Collette) and her husband (Gabriel Byrne), son (Alex Wolff) and daughter (Milly Shapiro) all mourn her loss. The family turn to different means to handle their grief, including Annie and her daughter both flirting with the supernatural. They each begin to have disturbing, otherworldly experiences linked to the sinister secrets and emotional trauma that have been passed through the generations of their family.

Plot Keywords: psychological horror, support group, cult, decapitation, demon, written by director, satanism ...

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#13. Trust (2010)

Storyline: A suburban family is torn apart when fourteen-year-old Annie (Liana Liberato) meets her first boyfriend online. After months of communicating via online chat and phone, Annie discovers her friend (Chris Henry Coffey) is not who he originally claimed to be. Shocked into disbelief, her parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener) are shattered by their daughter's actions and struggle to support her as she comes to terms with what has happened to her once innocent life.

Plot Keywords: internet chat, father daughter relationship, pedophile, scene during end credits, obsession, revenge motive, teenager ...

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#14. The Best Man Holiday (2013)

Storyline: Mia Sullivan (Monica Calhoun), wife of Lance Sullivan (Morris Chestnut), has written letters requesting that the old gang should join them for Christmas: Harper Stewart (Taye Diggs) and his almost-nine-month-pregnant wife Robyn (Sanaa Lathan), Julian "Murch" Murchison (Harold Perrineau) and wife Candace Sparks (Regina Hall), her best friend Jordan Armstrong (Nia Long) and boyfriend Brian McDonald (Eddie Cibrian), Quentin "Q" Spivey (Terrence Howard), and Shelby Taylor (Melissa De Sousa). All the friends arrive at the house, the first time they've come together in 14 years, and the celebration begins. At dinner, the old friends catch up while tensions grow between Shelby and Candace. Years after his debut novel, Harper is struggling with writer's block, financial difficulties, and pressure from his publisher to come up with newer and better material for his next book. He has also been recently relieved of his faculty position at New York University, further complicating the couple's ...

Plot Keywords: christmas, dysfunctional family, baby girl, woman in bra and panties, pregnant wife, panties, oral sex ...

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#15. Wedding in White (1972)

Storyline: It's the early 1940s in small town Ontario. Sixteen year old Jeannie Dougall is slightly dim, naive and lacks any self-confidence, immersing herself in the romantic lives of characters she sees on the movie screen as witnessed by the pictures she has plastered on her bedroom wall. Anything that Jeannie tries that is new or different is usually a result of being egged on by her more experienced best friend, Dolly, who flaunts her burgeoning sexuality. Jeannie lives with her working class parents, Jim and Mary Dougall, Scottish immigrants who live by their conservative and religious beliefs. Jim is a member of the Honor Guard, and has a view that anyone who wears a uniform in service to the country, such as his and Mary's son Jimmie Dougall, is to be admired regardless. Jimmie's non-battle service in Canada is in munitions requisitions. One day, Jeannie announces to her mother that she believes she's pregnant from what was her only sexual encounter to date: being raped by Jimmie's soldier friend Billy when they had a few days leave during the summer. Unlike Dolly, Jeannie didn't have the power or the wherewithal to deal with drunken Billy, and was scared of the aftermath when Billy and Jimmie skulked away in the middle of the night without a word of goodbye due to Billy's act. While Mary has some sympathy for her daughter, Jim, not caring about the details, only sees in his daughter a whore who has brought shame to the family if the truth were ever to emerge, she who cannot ever be married as a wanton woman. What Jim does in dealing with the issue is all in an effort to protect what he sees as his own good name among his friends without any regard for Jeannie's life or her future, she who doesn't truly understand the consequences until she is faced with it directly in real terms.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: singing, comb, looking at oneself in a mirror, mirror, lighting a cigarette, laughter, cigarette smoking ...

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