Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) on Netflix
Judah Rosenthal's mistress wants to tell his wife about their affair. Cliff Stern, filming a portrait of the brother-in-law he dislikes, falls for the producer working beside him.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.8/1063,785 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
Judah Rosenthal is a respected ophthalmologist with a wife of twenty-five years, Miriam, and a mistress of two years, Dolores Paley, a former flight attendant. Dolores wants Judah to leave his marriage, he says he never intended to, and she threatens to tell Miriam, adding that she knows of questionable financial dealings from his past. He asks Ben, a rabbi who is losing his sight, for guidance and also confides in his brother Jack, a gangster. Cliff Stern, a struggling documentary filmmaker, is married to Wendy, whose brother Lester, a television producer, hires him to make a documentary about himself, work Cliff resents. Through the job Cliff meets Halley Reed, a recently divorced associate producer, while pursuing his own project on Professor Louis Levy, a philosopher.
Cast
- Jenny Nicholsas Jenny
- Bill Bernsteinas Testimonial Speaker
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After viewing the first cut of Crimes and Misdemeanors, Woody Allen chose to get rid of the first act, call back actors for reshoots, and focus on what turned out to be the film's central story.
- Woody Allen personally selected Denver for the world premiere, opening the 12th Denver International Film Festival on October 19, 1989; festival representative Gloria Campbell said Allen chose Denver because of the strength of his following there, as Hannah and Her Sisters "had a better run at the Esquire in Denver than anywhere else in the country."
- In 2010 Crimes and Misdemeanors was the first film to win the 20/20 Award for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay for Allen, and Best Supporting Actor for Landau, all in the same year.
- In 2006 the Writers Guild of America West ranked the screenplay of Crimes and Misdemeanors 57th in its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays.
SPOILER
Judah's moral dilemma, whether a person can continue everyday life with the knowledge of having committed murder, evokes the pivotal idea of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), despite suggesting a resolution nearly opposite to that of the novel.
