Stranger Than Paradise (1984) on Netflix
Willie Molnar hustles bets in Brooklyn. His cousin Eva arrives from Budapest for a ten-day stay because Aunt Lotte is in a Cleveland hospital, and Willie wants nothing to do with her.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.4/1043,702 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Eva Molnar leaves Budapest for New York to live with her Aunt Lotte in Cleveland, but Lotte telephones her cousin Willie Molnar in Brooklyn to say she is in the hospital and Eva's stay with him must stretch to ten days. Willie, a surly gambler who calls himself American, wants no part of the arrangement and makes Eva speak English instead of Hungarian. She cleans his apartment, watches football and late-night science fiction with him, and surprises him by coming home with groceries, a TV dinner and cigarettes she got for nothing. Eddie, Willie's friend and hustling partner, fails to talk Willie into taking her along to the racetrack. Willie buys Eva a dress she does not like, and she plays a song he does not like.
Cast
- Cecillia Starkas Aunt Lotte
- Danny Rosenas Billy
- Harvey Perras Poker player
- Brian J. Burchillas Poker player
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Wim Wenders gave Jim Jarmusch the leftover film stock from The State of Things (1982), which let Jarmusch shoot the 30-minute short that became Stranger Than Paradise. The short was released on its own in 1982 and shown at the 1983 International Film Festival Rotterdam.
- Stranger Than Paradise broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking and became a landmark of modern independent film, cited as an early example of the low-budget independent wave that dominated the cinematic marketplace a decade later.
