Foreign Affairs

Nominated for a bunch of Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay among others, American Beauty is a bitterly sardonic portrayal of the suburban dream. Lester Burnham, brilliantly portrayed by Kevin Spacey, is your average forty-something guy. He hates his job, can’t stand his wife and is ultimately disgusted by the staggering futiltity of his own bourgeois existence. Sensually and spiritually starved, Lester turns to smoking pot, pumping iron, and Pink Floyd, all the while spurred on by deluded fantasies about his teenage daughter’s precocious pal Angela.

— Beatrice Gibson