Underplayed Gems
The whole movie catalogue

Films and series, searchable by what they are

← Back to the shop

Frances (1982)

Frances poster
Directed by
Graeme Clifford
Genre
drama film, biographical film
Country
United States
Runtime
2h 20m
Rated
R
Rating
6.9 of 10 from 123 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb

How it feels

The film follows the life of 1930s actress Frances Farmer. It shows her troubled career, her conflict with her mother, and her time in a mental institution.

tragicintenseupsettingsomberrawbiographicalharrowingemotional

What happens

Frances is a 1982 American biographical tragedy film directed by Graeme Clifford and written by Eric Bergren, Christopher De Vore, and Nicholas Kazan. The film stars Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer, a troubled actress during the 1930s whose career suffered as a result of her mental illness. It also features Kim Stanley, Sam Shepard, Bart Burns, Christopher Pennock, Jonathan Banks, and Jeffrey DeMunn in supporting roles. The film chronicles Farmer's life from her days as a high school student, her turbulent relationship with her emotionally abusive mother, her short lived film career in the 1930s, her institutionalization for alleged mental illness in the 1940s, her deinstitutionalization in the 1950s and her appearance on This Is Your Life. Frances was released theatrically on December 3, 1982, by Universal Pictures. Lange's performance was unanimously praised and has been cited by many (including herself) as her best performance. At the 55th Academy Awards, it received two nominations for Lange and Stanley as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? Tell the Catbot what you feel like watching and it picks from the whole catalogue, or browse by genre, country and year.

Lists: Korean thrillers worth the evening · Anime films beyond Studio Ghibli · Slow films for a rainy night · Horror that unsettles instead of startling · Series you can finish in a weekend · Nordic crime worth the subtitles · Good films that end in under 90 minutes · Documentaries that play like thrillers

Loading movies…

What should I watch?