Sounder

Martin Ritt

Set in rural Louisiana during the Depression, this heartfelt story tells of a sharecropper family struggling to overcome adversity. After stealing to feed his family, Nathan is sent to a prison camp. In their fight for survival, his determined wife and their eldest son hold the family together. Once the boy becomes an adult, he searches for his father but instead discovers manhood.


Back Roads

Martin Ritt

Oscar winner Sally Field reunites with her NORMA RAE director Martin Ritt in this engaging road comedy co-starring Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones. Amy is a "hooker with a heart of gold" and she's found herself on the road to California with Elmore, a crooked former prizefighter with maybe one good fight left in him. Traveling across the country, they're two people living on the fringe on an intriguing journey. Featuring gorgeous widescreen cinematography by the great John A. Alonzo (CHINATOWN) and a rousing score by the legendary Henry Mancini (THE PINK PANTHER).


The Slugger's Wife

Hal Ashby

When a young power-hitting baseball player falls in love with a beautiful rock singer, it seems like the perfect combination of two of America's favorite pastimes... or is it? Michael O'Keefe stars as Darryl Porter, an outfielder for the Atlanta Braves whose career is altered radically for the better when rock singer Debby Palmer (Rebecca De Mornay) enters his life and inspires him to greatness. But all is not rosy, as Debby finds that the more time she spends as "the slugger's wife," the more she misses her other true love - her music. Debby, torn between her love for Darryl and her career, decides to return to the stage. Her decision causes Darryl to fall into a batting slump that threatens the Braves' change at winning the pennant and also threatens their marriage.


The Outrage (1964)

Martin Ritt

A Western remake of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, involving a Mexican bandit who allegedly rapes the wife of a man who merely stands by.


Murphy's Romance

Martin Ritt

The last thing Emma Moriarty expected to find in Eunice, Arizona was love. So how does she wind up the object of Murphy's Romance? Sally Field and James Garner star in this endearing comic love story from director Martin Ritt (Norma Rae). Field plays a gutsy divorced mother eager to make it as a horse trainer on a small desert ranch. Enter the town's most eligible widower, Murphy Jones (Garner). The lovable, free-wheeling pharmacist befriends Emma and eventually comes a-courting. But just when Emma may have found the right guy, her ne'er-do-well ex, Bobby Jack (Brian Kerwin), rides back into her life. Which one of these persistent suitors will lasso the reluctant filly? Share the warmth and feel-good humor of Field, Garner and Murphy's Romance!


Edge of the City

Martin Ritt

New York City longshoreman Axel Nordmann is an Army deserter & Tommy Tyler is an easy-going freight car loader whose growing friendship is threatened by Charles Malik, a notably repellent punk.


Nuts (1987)

Martin Ritt

Academy Award-winners Barbra Streisand ("Funny Girl," "The Prince of Tides") and Richard Dreyfuss ("Mr. Holland's Opus," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind") team up in this powerful and emotionally charged drama. In one of her most provocative and challenging roles, Streisand portrays a strong-willed, high-priced call girl accused of manslaughter, who launches a fierce battle to prove her mental competence with the help of her court-appointed attorney. Directed by Martin Ritt ("Norma Rae") and featuring a distinguished supporting cast. Sneak Previews calls it "one of the year's must-see movies!...Absolutely terrific!...Streisand gives one of the finest performances of her career!...Richard Dreyfuss is wonderful...The all-star cast is brilliant." The Today Show says it's "a stunning movie...Ms. Streisand has never been more trenchant onscreen...Dreyfuss provides one of the most brilliant performances of his career."


The Front

Martin Ritt

A blacklisted writer has a friend act as a front for his TV scripts. The front becomes famous and falls in love with a script editor. He has to face the truth when he is called before an investigative committee to testify.


Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man

Martin Ritt

A fictionalized portrait of Ernest Hemingway's youth, based on his semi-autobiographical short stories. No one has stirred more people more deeply with his rousing adventures than Ernest Hemingway. And of all he wrote, many will most dearly remember what he put down about the passions and promise of awakening youth... how it feels to be nineteen... to feel the blood on fire with hungry, haunting desires... to sense the world closing in – trying to smother you... and you've got break out – or bust! This is the story of those years... the self-doubt and self-confidence, the ecstasy and excitement of a young man's springtime... when every hour is a fresh adventure, every moment a chance for the brave life... the big love!


Casey's Shadow

Martin Ritt

"Casey's Shadow" is a funny and touching story for the whole family about a cranky, impoverished horse trainer, Lloyd Bourdelle (Walter Matthau) and his three sons. When the oldest son is sent off to buy a quarter horse, he brings back, instead an old pregnant mare, explaining that she has superb bloodlines. The mare gives birth to a colt that grows into a strong, promising racehorse. Bourdelle sees it is an opportunity to show up his old rivals and make some money in the process. But just as Bourdelle is about to enter the horse in a million-dollar race its front leg is seriously injured. In spite of the vet's warning and his son's violent objections, Bourdelle enters the horse anyway. A bittersweet, poignant conclusion is sure to make Casey's Shadow a family favorite!


Cross Creek

Martin Ritt

The true story of novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who retreated in 1928 to an isolated citrus grove in order to write. Leaving behind her comfortable New York city life - and her marriage - she faced the backwoods alone. Her experiences in the swampy scrub country and the lives of her rustic neighbors became the subjects of her books and in the land and the people she found inspiration and love.


Hombre

Martin Ritt

John Russell (Paul Newman), a white man raised by a band of Arizona Apaches, is forced to confront the society he despises when he sells the boarding house his father has left him. While leaving town by stagecoach, several bigoted passengers insist he ride outside with the driver (Martin Balsam). But when outlaws leave them all stranded in the desert, Russell may be their only hope for survival! Diane Cilento, Frederic March, Richard Boone and Barbara Rush co-star in this action-packed Western classic.


The Black Orchid

Martin Ritt

Anthony Quinn and Sophia Loren star as longtime widower Frank and recently widowed Rose, lonely hearts who discover something special in The Black Orchid, a sensitive comedy romance directed by Martin Ritt (Norma Rae, Murphy's Romance). What they discover is each other - and a love that restores joy in their lives. Yet before they can say "I do," Frank's daughter says "No you don't!" With all the heart and courage they possess, Frank and Rose work to win over his daughter and to rescue Rose's son from a path that has him headed for reform school. Love may be better the second time around... but for Frank and Rose it's also a lot more complicated!


The Long, Hot Summer

Martin Ritt

Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury co-star in this riveting tale of life in the Deep South. When Ben Quick (Newman), a suspected barnburner drifts into town, he catches the eye of Will Varner, a tyrannical, intimidating patriarch (Welles) who decides Quick is the ideal husband for his spinsterish daughter (Woodward). But once the loner moves in, the two men lock horns, drawing Varner's family into a complex web of emotions leaving all of them changed forever. Based on several short stories by William Faulkner.


The Molly Maguires

Martin Ritt

The Molly Maguires was a secret society of militant coal miners who battled their exploitation by mine owners with violence, intimidation... and sometimes murder. Based on actual events, this gripping story is a sympathetic and accurate account of the Irish-American miners' struggle. Richard Harris (Gladiator, Camelot) plays a detective on undercover assignment for the owners, fighting his own conscience. Academy Award®–winner Sean Connery (Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, The Untouchables) is the tough and suspicious leader of the Mollies who repeatedly tests the newcomer's loyalty. Excellent photography and fine action scenes add to the realism of this vivid social drama.


Hud

Martin Ritt

Hud Bannon (Newman) is a young Texas rancher who lives with his cattleman father Homer (Melvyn Douglas) and his hero-worshipping nephew Lon (Brandon DeWilde). Hud is an amoral, cold-hearted creature; his father, who holds Hud responsible for the death of his other son, tries to imbue Lon with a sense of decency and responsibility to others, but Lon is devoted to Hud and isn't inclined to listen. When hoof-and-mouth disease shows up in one of the elder Bannon's cows, Hud is all for selling the herd before the government inspectors find out. But Homer orders the cattle destroyed (the film's most harrowing sequence), driving an even deeper wedge between himself and Hud. Finally, Hud steps over the line by attempting to rape Alma (Patricia Neal), the earthy but warm-hearted housekeeper. Paul Newman was so repellantly brilliant as an unregenerate heel that his Oscar nomination for Hud was a foregone conclusion. Although Newman lost the Oscar to Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field, Oscars did go to Neal for Best Actress, Douglas for Best Supporting Actor, and cinematographer James Wong Howe.


Stanley & Iris

Martin Ritt

He's a shy, illiterate short-order cook who's never taken a chance at love. She's a newly widowed factory worker who's vowed to never love again. But as their friendship slowly blossoms and Iris helps Stanley learn to read, his strong yet gentle kindness helps mend her broken heart. And where once two lonely strangers stood trapped within the past, Stanley and Iris can now begin a new chapter of their lives together.