Sophie's Choice (1982)
- Starring:
- Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, (more)
- Director(s):
- Alan J. Pakula
- Theatrical MPAA Rating:
- R
- Category:
- Drama
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The year is 1947. Aspiring southern author Stingo (Peter MacNichol) heads to New York to seek his fortune. Moving into a dingy Brooklyn boarding house, Stingo strikes up a friendship with research chemist Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline) and Nathan's girlfriend, Polish refugee Sophie Zawistowska (Oscar-winner Meryl Streep). There is something unsettling about the relationship; Nathan is subject to violent mood swings, while Sophie seems to be harboring a horrible secret. Stingo soons learns that both Nathan and Sophie are strangers to truth; the audience is likewise led down several garden paths by a series of sepia-toned flashbacks, depicting Sophie's ordeal in a wartime concentration camp. The scene in which we discover the facts behind Sophie's "choice" is a gut-wrenching one; it might have been even more powerful had not the film taken so long to get there. It is betraying nothing to reveal that the character of Stingo is the alter ego of William Styron, upon whose best-selling novel the film was based. The film is rated R, due in great part to a disposable scene wherein Stingo tries to put the make on a "liberated" female intellectual. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Theatrical Feature Running Time:
- 150 mins
Complete Cast:
- Meryl Streep - Sophie Zawistowska
- Peter MacNicol - Stingo
- Stephen D. Newman - Larry
- Josh Mostel - Morris Fink
- Katharina Thalbach - Wanda
- Ulli Fessl - Frau Hoess
- Robin Bartlett - Lillian Grossman
- Jennifer Lawn - Sophie's Child
- John Rothman - Librarian
- Josef Sommer - Narrator
- Eugene Lipinski - Polish Professor
- David Wohl - English Teacher
- Joseph Tobin - Reporter
- Kevin Kline - Nathan Landau
- Rita Karin - Yetta Zimmerman
- Greta Turken - Leslie Lapidus
- Günther Maria Halmer - Rudolf Hoess
- Karlheinz Hackl - SS Doctor
- Melanie Pianka - Emmi Hoess
- Moishe Rosenfeld - Moishe Rosenblum
- Joseph Leon - Dr. Blackstock
- Armand Dahan - Man #2 in English Class
- Eugeniusz Priwieziencew - Prisoner at Shower
- Vida Jerman - Female SS Guard
- Adrian Kalitka - Sophie's Child
- Marcell Rosenblatt - Astrid Weinstein
- Director(s):
- Alan J. Pakula
- Writer(s):
- Alan J. Pakula
- Producer(s):
- Martin Starger, Alan J. Pakula, Keith Barish
- Theatrical MPAA Rating:
- R(Violence, Adult Language, Adult Situations, Sexual Situations, Not For Children)
- Categories:
- Drama
- Closed Captioning:
- Check All Versions
- Subtitles:
- Check All Versions
- 1982 - Sophie's Choice - Hollywood Foreign Press Association - Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
- 1982 - Sophie's Choice - Los Angeles Film Critics Association - Best Actress
- 1982 - Sophie's Choice - National Board of Review - Best Actress
- 1982 - Sophie's Choice - National Society of Film Critics - Best Actress
- 1982 - Sophie's Choice - New York Film Critics Circle - Best Actress
- 1982 - Sophie's Choice - New York Film Critics Circle - Best Cinematography
