East of Middle West

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.

After an accident, acclaimed novelist Paul Sheldon is rescued by a nurse who claims to be his biggest fan. Her obsession takes a dark turn when she holds him captive in her remote Colorado home and forces him to write back to life the popular literary character he killed off.

An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.

Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.

A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.

A young woman fakes her own death in an attempt to escape her nightmarish marriage, but discovers it is impossible to elude her controlling husband.

After a pawn shop robbery goes askew, two criminals take refuge at a remote farmhouse to try to let the heat die down, but find something much more menacing.

Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.

In 1943, several people enter, re-enter, and exit the difficult life of a Midwestern family whose patriarch has been called up to war, leaving behind his wife and two teen daughters.

Douglas Privett is a young musician who returns to the small mid-western town of his childhood to see Ezrela Mae Privett, the ailing grandmother who'd raised him, a Baptist preacher battling demons of her own. Despite childhood memories of emotional trauma, Douglas agrees to stay in town and help her with therapy. Douglas searches for Cal, his only childhood friend and secret crush, but only finds Cal's younger sister, Jaylene. While staring at a starry night sky, Douglas recalls a positive memory o his grandmother and has a chance encounter with Dora, a wise homeless woman.

When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.

Irene is a woman in her thirties with a four-year-old daughter who has just separated from her husband and cannot find her place in the world. Determined to get by at whatever cost, she flees to a remote village in the mountains to try to rebuild her life, with the help of the lush vegetation, omnipresent nature and legends around her.

Jewell and Gil are farmers. They seem to be working against the odds, producing no financial surplus. Gil has lost hope of ever becoming prosperous, but Jewell decides to fight for her family.

In 1950s rural Idaho, a young boy watches helplessly as his friends and brother fall under the spell of a mysterious widow living up the road and becomes convinced that she is a vampire.

Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

Celestine has a new job as a chambermaid for the quirky M. Monteil, his wife and her father. When the father dies, Celestine decides to quit her job and leave, but when a young girl is raped and murdered, Celestine believes that the Monteils' groundskeeper, Joseph, is guilty, and stays on in order to prove it. She uses her sexuality and the promise of marriage to get Joseph to confess -- but things do not go as planned.

Since the death of their father, the Riley siblings have kept their heads above water by illegally dealing in painkillers. Josie is managing the business with an iron fist, when her brother, War veteran Kip, is concerned that the risky business is increasingly turning them into outsiders in their small community. While Kip wants to keep his younger brother out of their illegal endeavors, his younger brother is already making plans of his own.