Movies starring Joan Allen

Perceptive is the best single word I can come up with to describe The Ice Storm, Ang Lee's near-masterpiece that deconstructs the American family. For, although the film is provocative, entertaining, and impeccably crafted, its greatest streng...

Welcome to a world where Father knows best, where Mother cooks dinner, and where Sister and Brother's small missteps are treated with stern-but-kind lectures. It's a realm where everyone is nice to one another, where neighbors greet each other...

Spoilers ahoy! A 19-year old woman (Brie Larson) is abducted, held against her will, and repeatedly raped. After two years in captivity, she gives birth to a boy. The father (Sean Bridgers) allows her to keep the child, whom she raises. By the tim...

When we first meet Ethan Frome (Liam Neeson), he is a broken man hobbling around town. The new preacher takes an interest in him and soon learns the tragic tale of Frome's life. Years ago, as a younger and more hale man, Ethan married Zeena (Joan...

For his sophomore effort, filmmaker Rod Lurie turned his attention to the Oval Office. The Contender, a low-key political thriller that relies primarily on character interaction to develop tension, is a close cousin to Lurie's debut cinematic ...

At the tender age of seven, Josh Waitzkin (Max Pomeranc) becomes fascinated by the game of chess. Without giving up little league baseball, he learns how to play, hanging out with Vinnie (Laurence Fishburne) and a group of speed chess hustlers...

If nothing else, The Bourne Ultimatum represents the best of 2007's inordinately high number of so-called "threequels." Hopefully, that's not damning with faint praise. The Bourne Ultimatum, the third in the movie trilogy loosely based on Robert...

Now that Kevin Costner has grown too old to convincingly play a baseball star (even an aging Major Leaguer, as in For Love of the Game), he has progressed logically. In The Upside of Anger, he portrays an ex-Detroit Tiger whose life has deteriorat...

It's always a tricky proposition to make a motion picture based on recent history -- and the more public the episode, the more difficult it is for the film maker to balance drama with accuracy. This is especially true when that film maker is Olive...

Face/Off, the third English-language feature from acclaimed Hong Kong director John Woo, isn't the best movie of the summer, but it certainly features some of the best action. Woo, who is known and appreciated for his unique stylistic approach to ...