Movies which are character studies recommendations

I'm not sure if that's the proper terminology, but I'm looking for recommendations of films where the focus is on a main character or two. I can recommend The Last Waltz with Michelle Williams. Very well done and interesting character studies. Seth Rogan gave an excellent performance.

• THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING with Julie Harris and Ethel Waters is mainly a character study of a motherless adolescent and the widowed maid who looks after her.

• The Woody Allen dramas, especially "Interiors" and "Another Woman"

• Passion Fish, a John Sayles film starring Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard. A soap opera star (McDonnell) is rendered a paraplegic after a car accident and returns to her Louisiana homestead. She needs nursing care, but drives one nurse after another away with her bitterness and bile. Until nurse Alfre Woodward arrives. Really a wonderful film.

• OPENING NIGHT, directed by John Cassavetes and starring Gena Rowlands. Incredible film.

• Great recommendations here already. Gena Rowlands is superb in both Opening Night and Another Woman. (I'd also cite Sandy Dennis' brief, but bold appearance in the latter as award-worthy). I'd also recommend a couple of the Joanne Woodward standards which are indeed both character studies: Rachel, Rachel (1968) and Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973)

• r2 beat me to it : Interiors

• Nothing beats a character study like Ellen Burystn's character in "Requiem For A Dream."

• The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola) Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini) Persona (Ingmar Bergman) Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa) Vagabond (Agnes Varda)

• Midnight Cowboy Nashville

• OP - the Michelle Williams movie is TAKE THIS WALTZ.

  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592281/

• Sigourney Weaver in Polanski's "Death and the Maiden". Riveting performance.

• the two leads in "What Happened Was..." Good luck finding this great movie and character study - I think it is only available on VHS

• Another great Joanne Woodward "character study" is her performance as an alcoholic single mother with two maladjusted daughters in THE EFFECTS OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS. The film is considerably different from the play in the way it focuses on Woodward's character whom we see in a variety of situations not included in the stage version.

• You Can Count on Me Five Easy Pieces The Trip To Bountiful The Ice Storm The Talented Mr.Ripley

• THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE Both are excellent and star one of the greatest actresses of all time, Maggie Smith.

• HIGH TIDE with Judy Davis KLUTE with Jane Fonda THE QUEEN with Helen Mirren SECRETS AND LIES with Brenda Blethyn HAPPY-GO-LUCKY with Sally Hawkins GEORGY GIRL with Lynn Redgrave

• CITIZEN KANE is the grand-daddy of male character study movies. WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE is primarily a study of Dawn Weiner, a hellishly put-upon geek, as she enters young womanhood. THE 400 BLOWS is a portrait of a male adolescent misfit.

• House of Sand and Fog.

• R14 is on the money.

• "The Birds". I'm serious. It's a good soap opera with some horror thrown in.

• THE LONELY LADY. It tells you all about why she's so lonely, even though she wins all kinds of success and prizes.

• Viridiana

• The Passion of Joan of Arc

• "The Dresser" with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay . . . "Madame Sousatzka" with Shirley MacLaine, Peggy Ashcroft and Goeffrey Bayldon . . . . "Gods and Monsters" with Ian Mckellan, Lynn Redgrave and Brendan Fraser . . . .

  Steve K.

• R18 - yes, House of sand and Fog is an excellent character study. very sad, though. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine is another.

• .

• Try "The Collector". Terence Stamp's and Samantha Eggar's characters are the only two people on screen for all but a couple of scenes.

• "Truly Madly Deeply" Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson

• Anything from Paul Thomas Anderson Boogie Nights Magnolia Punch Drunk Love There Will Be Blood

• OP, I really think you need to be clearer about what you are asking for. There are tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of movies where the focus is on a main character or two, so I take it you mean something much more specific. But what, exactly, you mean isn't at all clear.

• Thanks for mentioning Truly, Madly, Deeply, R28. That was my introduction to Alan Rickman and it made me a fan for life. Klute is another great recommendation. Forgive Jane Fonda all her missteps because of that one. I'll add Away From Her - Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.

• Quills - Geoffrey Rush is mind blowing

• Brokeback Mountain.

• My Dinner With Andre

• Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.

• The 'Trois Couleurs' series by Krzysztof Kieslowski from the early 90's are great character studies; three films with separate plot-lines that intertwine. 'Bleu' with Juliette Binoche is my favorite.

• "Save the Tiger" "Hard Eight" "Straight Time"

• The Killing of Sister George. It's not an exaggeration to say that it taught lesbians how to be the modern lesbians as we understand them today.

• ''In the Bedroom'' ''The Go-Between'' ''Burning Secret''