Film

Hannah and Her Sisters

Name: Hannah and Her Sisters
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1986
Cast: Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen, Michael Caine

Woody Allen's warmest ensemble piece follows three sisters and the men orbiting them across two Thanksgivings in Manhattan, mixing marital betrayal, hypochondriac despair, and sudden bursts of unearned happiness. It's talky, literate, occasionally cruel to its characters, but never to its actors — Caine, Wiest and Hershey all found career highlights here. Ideal for anyone who likes their comedy laced with real ache.

TMDb rating

7.5

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The wildcard

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Suburban infidelity and family drift handled with real chill instead of Allen's neurotic charm — same wandering-spouse architecture, entirely different, colder climate.

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Mother-daughter instead of sisters, but the same trick of sliding from broad comedy into sudden devastation without warning — and somehow pulling it off, right down to the ending that undoes you.

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The Squid and the Whale2005

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Allen's earlier, glossier New York romance, same appetite for beautiful apartments and messy, complicated hearts, minus the layered ensemble structure that makes Hannah so much richer.

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