Family Drama is a genre revolving around conflicts between family members. In a more general sense, any work of fiction about the relationships within a family. The longer, non-funny version of the Dom Com. Expect lots of this in a Big, Screwed-Up Family. On Live-Action TV, it usually comes in Dramatic Hour Long shows. Many Soap Operas overlap with this genre. See also Teen Drama.
Examples:
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Anime
- Fullmetal Alchemist: The series is about two brothers trying to fix themselves, both literally and figuratively.
- Grave of the Fireflies: A film about two orphaned siblings during World War II.
- Witchblade: The story is about a young woman and her adopted daughter. Much of the plot is driven by their involvement with the conspiracy surrounding the child's biological parents.
Film
- Aquaman (2018): The plot revolves around two half brothers and their mother.
- Batman: Under the Red Hood: Revolves around the conflict between the protagonist and his (second) adopted son.
- Black Panther (2018): The entire plot revolves around a fall-out between two brothers which carried on through their descendants.
- Cries and Whispers: Three estranged sisters gather when one of them is terminally ill.
- Encanto: The story concerns the Madrigals, a large Colombian family gifted with magic and highly respected by their neighbors. While tight-knit, many members of the family feel pressured by the matriarch to keep up a façade of perfection at all times, which nearly costs the family's magic.
- Frozen (2013): The plot revolves around two estranged sisters.
- Frozen II: Sequel of the above. This time the plot hinges on their family's Dark and Troubled Past.
- Interiors: Three troubled sisters deal with their parents' divorce.
- Little Miss Sunshine: A film with a Road Trip Plot featuring a very Dysfunctional Family.
- SHAZAM! (2019): Much of the film is about the protagonist searching for his biological mother and learning to accept his foster family.
Live-Action TV
- 7th Heaven: About a Preacher Man and his family.
- Bates Motel: Revolves around a widowed single mother with PTSD and her increasingly unhinged son.
- The Beauty Queen Of Jerusalem follows a Sephardic Jewish family in Jerusalem from the 1920s to the 1940s.
- Blue Bloods: A Crime and Punishment Series revolving around one of the New York City Police Department's cop dynasties, from a great-grandfather who is a retired police commissioner to grandsons who are a homicide detective and a beat cop, and a granddaughter who's an ADA, and their kids who are likely to end up in the family business.
- Brothers & Sisters
- Caprica: Ron Moore more or less explicitly called Caprica "the first Science Fiction Family Drama," and said that it's basically Dallas meets Rome meets The Sopranos IN SPACE!
- Charmed (1998): A Fantasy Series about three witch sisters.
- Charmed (2018): 2018 remake of the above.
- Dallas
- Dirty Sexy Money
- Dynasty (1981)
- Dynasty (2017)
- Encantadia: A Fantasy Series about four royal fairy sisters.
- Family
- Five Fingers
- Game of Thrones: The story of several Royally Screwed Up families in an Epic Fantasy setting.
- House of the Dragon even more than its parent show.
- Gilmore Girls: Revolves around a single mother and her daughter.
- The Haves and the Have Nots
- Hit & Miss
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): The last four episodes of Season 1 center on a dysfunctional vampire family which consists of the couple Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, and their adoptive daughter Claudia. Claudia is subjected to parental abuse from Lestat (and Louis is guilty of this on one occasion), Lestat almost kills Louis in an incident of intimate partner violence, Lestat plots to murder his fledgling Claudia, plus Louis and Claudia attempt to commit Patricide against their maker Lestat.
- Kingdom (2014)
- Little House on the Prairie
- Northern Rescue
- One Tree Hill: Revolves around two half-brothers and how their lives as well as the people around them get entangled.
- Parenthood
- Party of Five: Revolves around five orphaned siblings adjusting to life after their parents' deaths.
- Princess Returning Pearl
- Scoundrels (2010)
- Shameless (UK): A show about a struggling Dysfunctional Family.
- Shameless (US): U.S. remake of the above.
- Shtisel: Revolves around 3 (and sometimes 4) generations of an Orthodox Jewish family in Jerusalem.
- Sisters
- Superman & Lois: Revolves around the eponymous characters' marital and parental life.
- Supernatural: The show is about two brothers fighting demons and mystical beings while also dealing with their family's turbulent history.
- This Is Us
- The Waltons
Video Games
- Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Mixed with Spaghetti Western.
