Directed by Graeme Clifford • 1982 • United States
Starring Jessica Lange, Sam Shepard, Kim Stanley

Jessica Lange delivers an Academy Award–nominated performance in this true-life Hollywood tragedy. She stars as Frances Farmer, a free-spirited actress whose talent and beauty propel her to Tinseltown stardom in the 1930s but whose defiantly leftist political views and refusal to play by the usual Hollywood rules cause her to clash with studio executives. Alcoholism, scandal, an emotional breakdown, and a series of horrifying confinements to psychiatric institutions take the once-bright star from the heights of fame to the lowest depths of the human experience.