Best Drama Movies of 1964

The highest-rated drama films from 1964, ranked by MovieMagicScore based on authentic viewer ratings.

Drama 1963 Drama 1965 All Time Drama

Action Comedy Horror Science Fiction Thriller Romance Animation Documentary Fantasy Crime

Woman in the Dunes

1964

A vacationing entomologist suffers extreme physical and psychological trauma after being taken captive by the residents of a poor seaside village and made to live with a woman whose life task is shoveling sand for them.

8.2

Fail Safe

1964

Because of a technical defect an American bomber team mistakenly orders the destruction of Moscow. The President of the United States has but little time to prevent an atomic catastrophe from occurring.

7.8

Marriage Italian Style

1964

During the bombing of Naples in World War II, a cynical businessman helps a naive prostitute, who spends the next two decades desperate to have him reciprocate her feelings.

7.7

Band of Outsiders

1964

Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.

7.5

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

1964

This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love. She becomes pregnant and must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.

7.4

I Am Cuba

1964

Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.

7.8

Zulu

1964

In 1879, during the Anglo-Zulu War, man-of-the-people Lt. Chard and snooty Lt. Bromhead are in charge of defending the isolated and vastly outnumbered Natal outpost of Rorke's Drift from tribal hordes.

7.4

Red Desert

1964

In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.

7.3

Zorba the Greek

1964

An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.

7.4

#10

Seduced and Abandoned

1964

The film presents the tale of Agnese Ascalone, daughter of prominent miner Vincenzo Ascalone, and takes place in a small town in Sicily. Agnese is seduced by her sister Matilde's fiancé, and has a tryst with him for which she confesses and tries to repent, only to be discovered by her mother and father.

7.6

#11

Charulata

1964

In 1870s India, Charulata is an isolated, artistically inclined woman who sees little of her busy journalist husband, Bhupati. Realizing that his wife is alienated and unhappy, he convinces his cousin, Amal, to spend time with Charulata and nourish her creative impulses. Amal is a fledgling poet himself, and he and Charulata bond over their shared love of art.

7.5

#12

Seven Days in May

1964

A U.S. Marine Corps colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.

7.3

#13

The Soft Skin

1964

Pierre Lachenay is a well-known publisher and lecturer, married to Franca and father of Sabine. He starts a love affair with air hostess Nicole, which Pierre is hiding, but he cannot stay away from her.

7.1

#14

Mothra vs. Godzilla

1964

Journalists Ichiro Sakai and Junko cover the wreckage of a typhoon when an enormous egg is found and claimed by greedy entrepreneurs. Mothra's fairies arrive and are aided by the journalists in a plea for its return. As their requests are denied, Godzilla arises near Nagoya and the people of Infant Island must decide if they are willing to answer Japan's own pleas for help.

7.0

#15

Diary of a Chambermaid

1964

Celestine has a new job as a chambermaid for the quirky M. Monteil, his wife and her father. When the father dies, Celestine decides to quit her job and leave, but when a young girl is raped and murdered, Celestine believes that the Monteils' groundskeeper, Joseph, is guilty, and stays on in order to prove it. She uses her sexuality and the promise of marriage to get Joseph to confess -- but things do not go as planned.

7.1

#16

Becket

1964

Thomas Becket, Henry II's longtime advisor, finds his friendship with the debauched king corroding when he is unwillingly appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury in an attempt to gain absolute loyalty from the Church.

7.1

#17

Gertrud

1964

Hopeless romantic Gertrud inhabits a turn-of-the-century milieu of artists and musicians, where she pursues an idealized notion of love that will always elude her. She abandons her distinguished husband and embraces an affair with a young concert pianist, who falls short of her desire for lasting affection. When an old lover returns to her life, fresh disappointments follow, and Gertrud must try to come to terms with reality.

7.2

#18

Three Outlaw Samurai

1964

Shiba, a wandering ronin, encounters a band of peasants who have kidnapped the daughter of their dictatorial magistrate, in hopes of coercing from him a reduction in taxes. Shiba takes up their fight, joined by two renegades from the magistrate's guard, Sakura and Kikyo. The three outlaws find themselves in a battle to the death.

7.4

#19

The Night of the Iguana

1964

A defrocked Episcopal clergyman leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with the failure haunting his life.

7.1

#20

Black God, White Devil

1964

Wanted for killing his boss, Manuel flees with his wife Rosa to the sertão, the barren landscape of Northern Brazil. Thrust into a primordial violent region, Manuel and Rosa come under the influence and control of a series of frightening figures.

7.1

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Best Drama Movies of 1964

This ranking features the top drama movies released in 1964, sorted by MovieMagicScore viewer ratings. Looking for more? Browse all genres from 1964 or see the best drama movies of all time.