Bobby

If you want a drama that takes its characters as seriously as its plot, Bobby is available in the US on Amazon Prime Video and Fawesome right now. A tight runtime that never overstays its welcome. Its 6/10 TMDB score, built from 428 ratings, reflects a title that consistently delivers. Watch it for Anthony Hopkins — one of the stronger performances out there right now. There is no real reason to keep putting it off — it is right there on Amazon Prime Video.

Bobby arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. The writing in Bobby treats its characters as people first, plot devices second. In 1968 the lives of a retired doorman, hotel manager, lounge singer, busboy, beautician and others intersect in the wake of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Anthony Hopkins and William H. Macy lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was released in 2006. The writing trusts the audience to sit with ambiguity rather than wrapping everything up in a tidy conclusion — it is the approach that separates good drama from great. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

Drama fans who appreciate slow-burn storytelling will feel right at home with Bobby. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. A contained runtime means every scene is doing real work. Anthony Hopkins's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.