Actress Ann Dowd (1956)

American Animals (2018), a docudrama heist film written and directed by Bart Layton, follows the story of art student Spencer Reinhard. Seeking inspiration for his work, Spencer is given a tour of Transylvania University library’s rare-book collection. During the tour, he becomes fixated on a rare first edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Spencer shares his idea with his rebellious friend Warren Lipka, who is attending the University of Kentucky on an athletic scholarship. They discuss the possibility of stealing the valuable books and selling them to black-market buyers in Amsterdam for ...

Collateral Beauty (2016) is an American fantasy drama film directed by David Frankel and written by Allan Loeb. The story follows Howard Inlet, a successful advertising executive who tragically loses his young daughter. This devastating event takes a toll on Howard’s mental state as he sinks into a deep depression. His behavior becomes concerning to his estranged friends and business partners, Whit Yardsham, Claire Wilson, and Simon Scott, who worry about both Howard’s well-being and the future of their company. His actions have caused them to lose important ...

Big Driver (2014) is an American crime thriller television film based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King, which was published in his collection Full Dark, No Stars (2010). Tess Thorne, a successful crime-mystery writer, receives an invitation to meet her fans at a library in upstate Massachusetts. Despite her fear of flying, she chooses to drive to her engagements rather than fly, even for long distances. During one such event, organized by Ramona, she is offered a quicker route home. However, this route takes her through a remote rural location where her car runs over nail-studded planks on the ...

Based on Elizabeth Strout’s 2008 novel, Olive Kitteridge (2014) is an American TV miniseries set in Maine. Starring Frances McDormand as the title character and Richard Jenkins as her husband Henry Kitteridge, with Zoe Kazan as Denise Thibodeau and Bill Murray as Jack Kennison. The show is divided into four parts, each depicting a different point in the story. Premiering on HBO on November 2, 2014, the first two episodes ...

The Informant! (2009) is an American biographical-crime comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Z. Burns. It follows the story of Mark Whitacre, a rising star at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in Decatur, Illinois during the early 1990s. Whitacre’s wife Ginger urges him to blow the whistle on the company’s illegal price-fixing practices. In November 1992, he confesses to FBI agent Brian Shepard that ADM executives (including himself) had been colluding with competitors to manipulate lysine prices. To gather evidence, Whitacre secretly ...

Richard Condon’s 1959 novel, The Manchurian Candidate (2004), is a political thriller that tells the story of a prominent U.S. political family and their son’s involvement in a Communist conspiracy. The novel has been adapted into two feature films with the same title, released in 1962 and 2004 respectively. In the story, Major Bennett Marco and his infantry platoon are captured during the Korean War in 1952 by an elite Soviet commando unit. They are eventually brainwashed into believing that Sergeant Raymond Shaw saved their lives in combat, leading to him receiving the Medal of Honor. Years later, Marco, ...