Directed by Abel Ferrara • 2001 • United States
Starring Drea de Matteo, Lillo Brancato Jr., Lisa Valens

Blending raw, almost documentary-like realism with flashes of his trademark urban expressionism, Abel Ferrara serves up a strangely affecting Christmas morality tale as only he can. As the holidays approach, a mother (Drea de Matteo of “The Sopranos”) sees her picture-perfect life—a fairy-tale facade of Manhattan prosperity that’s secretly sustained by a sleazy drug-dealing business—unravel when her husband (Lillo Brancato Jr.) is kidnapped by rival dealers, forcing her to wage war against the underworld to protect all she’s built.