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.
- 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
- 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.