Best movies that are oscar winners or nominees in best actor - motion picture drama category

Midnight Cowboy(1969)

Combined Rating:
82
Combined Critics Rating: 76

A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.



Chinatown(1974)

Combined Rating:
82
Combined Critics Rating: 74

A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.



Network(1976)

Combined Rating:
81
Combined Critics Rating: 75

A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit.



The Deer Hunter(1978)

Combined Rating:
81
Combined Critics Rating: 73

An in-depth examination of the ways in which the U.S. Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of people in a small industrial town in Pennsylvania.



Bohemian Rhapsody(2018)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 73

A chronicle of the years leading up to Queen's legendary appearance at the Live Aid (1985) concert.



Kramer vs. Kramer(1979)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 73

Ted Kramer's wife leaves her husband, allowing for a lost bond to be rediscovered between Ted and his son, Billy. But a heated custody battle ensues over the divorced couple's son, deepening the wounds left by the separation.



Ordinary People(1980)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 78

The accidental death of the older son of an affluent family deeply strains the relationships among the bitter mother, the good-natured father, and the guilt-ridden younger son.



The Last Emperor(1987)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 75

The story of the final Emperor of China.



Rain Man(1988)

Combined Rating:
80
Combined Critics Rating: 71

Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt's father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country.



Wonder Boys(2000)

Combined Rating:
79
Combined Critics Rating: 74

An English Professor tries to deal with his wife leaving him, the arrival of his editor who has been waiting for his book for seven years, and the various problems that his friends and associates involve him in.



Cool Hand Luke(1967)

Combined Rating:
79
Combined Critics Rating: 71

A laid back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.



Hustle & Flow(2005)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 75

With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.



Patton(1970)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 71

The World War II phase of the career of the controversial American general, George S. Patton.



Good Will Hunting(1997)

Combined Rating:
78
Combined Critics Rating: 67

Will Hunting, a janitor at M.I.T., has a gift for mathematics, but needs help from a psychologist to find direction in his life.



Bonnie and Clyde(1967)

Combined Rating:
77
Combined Critics Rating: 69

Bonnie Parker, a bored waitress falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, robbing cars and banks.



Dead Poets Society(1989)

Combined Rating:
77
Combined Critics Rating: 67

English teacher John Keating inspires his students to look at poetry with a different perspective of authentic knowledge and feelings.



Dances with Wolves(1990)

Combined Rating:
77
Combined Critics Rating: 67

Lt. John Dunbar, exiled to a remote western Civil War outpost, befriends wolves and Indians, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.



Leaving Las Vegas(1995)

Combined Rating:
76
Combined Critics Rating: 67

Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his alcoholism, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.



Serpico(1973)

Combined Rating:
75
Combined Critics Rating: 67

An honest New York cop named Frank Serpico blows the whistle on rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.



JFK(1991)

Combined Rating:
75
Combined Critics Rating: 65

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers there's more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.




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