Directed by Jack Clayton • 1987 • United Kingdom
Starring Maggie Smith, Bob Hoskins, Wendy Hiller

Maggie Smith delivers a tremendously moving performance as a woman grappling with loneliness, love, and faith in this sensitive character study adapted from the novel by Brian Moore. Middle-aged spinster Judith Hearne (Smith) has seen life pass her by. Now alone and living in a rundown boarding house, she begins to question the Catholic piety that has heretofore governed her life. The possibility of a relationship with her landlord’s widowed brother (Bob Hoskins), newly arrived from America, offers her a chance for redemption—but is it only an illusion?