Hannah and Her Sisters

Academy Awards 1986 - Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen

Academy Awards 1986 - Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine

Academy Awards 1986 - Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest

Rolling Stone - 12/14/1989
"...Ardent, ambitious and memorable....[A] compassionate comedy..."

New York Times - 02/07/1986
"...Nonstop exhilaration -- a dramatic comedy not quite like any other, and one that sets new standards for [Allen] as well as for all American movie makers..."

New York Times - 12/28/1986
Included in the New York Times "10 BEST FILMS OF 1986"

Los Angeles Times - 02/07/1986
"...Mellow, beautiful, rich and brimming with love, HANNAH is the best Woody Allen yet and, quite simply, a great film..."

Sight and Sound - 10/01/2002
"...Allen interweaves the stories of Hannah, Lee and their other sister Holly with exemplary skill, creating a witty, sophisticated and brilliantly shot comedy-drama..."

Total Film - 02/01/2012
5 stars out of 5 -- "Around these characters the film weaves a rich Chekhovian mix full of wry insights into the fragility of human emotions."

Woody Allen combined the best parts of his earlier films in creating HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, his 1986 masterwork about the changing relationships among three sisters living in New York City. Hannah (Mia Farrow) has put her acting career aside in order to take care of her family with second husband Elliot (Michael Caine in an Oscar-winning performance). Elliot has fallen in love with Hannah's sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), who herself is feeling suffocated by her cynical, mean-spirited loner of a lover, played with great intensity by Ingmar Bergman regular Max von Sydow. Meanwhile, third sister Holly (Oscar winnner Dianne Wiest) is struggling to find her own voice, working as a caterer while she tries to get her own acting career going. And in the middle of everything is Mickey (Woody Allen at his most neurotic), a television writer who is divorced from Hannah, has dated Holly, and, when he suspects he might have a brain tumor, decides to reevaluate his life and his faith in God.

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS is Allen's most fully realized, optimistic adult comedy. He won a well-deserved Oscar for his marvelous screenplay, filled with his trademark sharp, witty dialogue, his undying passion for New York (its culture, architecture, music, romance), and some of his most well developed characters. The cast is extraordinary, the music illuminating, the settings magnificent. Taking place over the course of a few Thanksgivings, Allen's insightful, wonderful film is a thoroughly enjoyable mature look at the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of family life.

Woody Allen's brilliant comedy examines the relationships and confusing romantic attachments of three sisters living in New York City.

Character Study | Classic | Essential Cinema | Family Interaction | Friends | Infidelity | Recommended | Romance | Theatrical Release